Qatar will battle for Continental glory when the AFC U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 kicks off tomorrow in Tashkent. Spread over a span of 19 days, the continent’s top 16 teams will play over 32 matches across four venues, three of which are in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, namely the Bunyodkor Stadium – which will stage tomorrow’s opener and the final on June 19 – the Pakhtakor Stadium and Lokomotiv Stadium, as well as the Markaziy Stadium in the southern Uzbek city of Qarshi.
Qatar, who are coached by Chilean Nicholas Cordova, are in Group A alongside Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. They will open their campaign against Iran tomorrow at Bunyodkor Stadium before taking on hosts Uzbekistan on June 4. Qatar’s final group stage match will be against Turkey on June 7 at Bunyodkor Stadium
Qatar missed participation in the first edition in Oman in 2014, and then appeared in the subsequent three editions. In 2016, they lost in the semi-finals to South Korea 3-1. Qatar’s most prominent achievement was achieving third place in the 2018 edition where they beat South Korea 3-1, while they failed to pass the group stage in 2020.
In contrast, Iran have participated in three out of four editions. They bowed out in the first round in 2014, but qualified for the quarter-finals in 2016. Iran missed the third edition in China, and were eliminated in the first round in the last edition that took place in Thailand in 2020. Iran qualified for the finals of the 2022 tournament topping their group achieving three victories against Nepal, Lebanon, and Tajikistan.
Hosts Uzbekistan are looking for a second title having previously won the cup in 2018 beating Vietnam in the final. Uzbekistan are one of the four teams to have won the title, along with South Korea, Japan and Iraq.
Turkey have qualified for the tournament being ranked sixth in the qualifiers and ranked sixth in the sixth group with three points, and accompanied the leading Jordanian team to the finals, where they lost to Jordan, and beat Palestine to book a place in the finals as one of the best teams that ranked second. The Qatar team, before travelling to Tashkent, concluded friendly fixtures in Doha. As part of its preparatory programme, the Qatari team participated in the Dubai Friendly Championship recently.
Qatar reached the Asian U-23 finals after topping the qualifiers by defeating Yemen 3-0 and Sri Lanka 5-0, to join 15 teams that will be in Uzbekistan, namely: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE and Jordan, Australia, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and hosts Uzbekistan. The tournament will witness the participation of four teams that have previously won the title, along with nine teams that have reached the semi-finals before, while Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are participating for the first time in the finals.

Qatar U-23 squad
Ahmed al-Janhi, Mustafa Essam (Al Gharafa), Salah Zakaria, Mohamed al-Nuaimi (Al Duhail), Jassem Jaber, Ahmed Suhail, Mahmoud Aboundi (Al Arabi), Osama al-Tiri, Hashem Ali, Ali Mal Allah ( Al Rayyan), Abdul Rashid Ibrahim, Abdullah al-Sulaiti (Al Ahli), Youssef Abdul Razzaq, Mustafa Tariq, Faisal Mohamed, Youssef Abdullah (Al Sadd), Youssef Ayman, Jassem al-Muhairi, Khaled Walid (Qatar), Mohamed Ayyash (Al Wakra), Haroun Diab (Al Khor), Marwan Sharif (North), Makki Mohsen (Al Kharaitiyat).      
Related Story