Doha: Qatar coach Felix Sanchez stressed his side’s perfect record
in the group stages of the AFC U23 Championship will count for little
as the tournament hosts prepare to take on DPR Korea in the quarterfinals
today.
Sanchez’s side notched impressive wins over China, Iran and Syria to
finish on top of Group A with a maximum nine points.
But despite DPR Korea only scraping into the last eight as runners-up
in Group B after picking up two points from their three games, Sanchez
is only focused on steering Qatar into the next round.
“We start the quarter-finals now, so there is no time for mistakes,” said
Spanish coach Sanchez, who will be without Moez Ali due to suspension.
“At this time it doesn’t matter how many points we had in the first round
because it’s only one game.”
Qatar are the top scorers in the tournament with nine goals in three
games, with both Abdelkarim Hassan and Ahmed Alaa scoring four
goals each to lead the scorers’ chart. “The first round is already finished
and I think we did quite well. We got three points in each game, each
game was different and we preformed quite well,” added Sanchez.
“We have what is going to be a very tough game because DPR Korea
have a team that deserves to be in this round. They have a lot of strength
in the team and we are going to try to play a good game, to perform
well and get into the next round.
“We know we have in front of us a really good team, so our objective
is only to think about this game and after that we will see what is the
next step.”
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