Qatar Football AssociationNational Teams | First Team
30.07.2021 17:58 in :

AUSTIN, Texas: Coach Felix Sanchez on Thursday lauded his players’ performances after Qatar exited at the Gold Cup with a gutsy appearance in the semifinals.

In a tense yet exciting match, Qatar lost to the U.S. 1-0 at the Q2 Stadium.

Coached by Sanchez, Qatar drew with Panama before beating Honduras, Grenada and El Salvador to reach the last-four of the biennial tournament in their debut appearance.

“Although we were unable to reach the final, the players made great efforts throughout the match. We played well, especially in the first half, in which we were the best side in every metric. We had many chances to score,” Sanchez said.

“In the second half, we tried to continue to put pressure on the opponents. We searched for the goal, and we had an opportunity to do so through a penalty kick that we missed. This led to an immediate decline and loss of momentum afterwards,” he added.

The match-winning goal would finally arrive in the 86th minute of play, as a pressing U.S. team recovered the ball deep in the Qatar half and went on the counter. Gyazi Zardes found the winner by pushing a shot into the net off a cross from Nicholas Gioacchini, sending the U.S. to Sunday’s Final against Mexico.

“The game became more open as they were able to take advantage of that missed penalty to score the game’s only goal,” Sanchez said.

Regarding his assessment of Qatar’s participation in the tournament, Sanchez said: “As I said before, playing at the level of this tournament is very beneficial for us, especially as we are preparing the team for the 2022 World Cup. It is good to play different football schools since we are accustomed to playing against Asian teams. We have gained a lot of experience that will benefit us during the upcoming tournaments and matches. We just have to keep working on playing better.”

Sanchez pointed out that Qatar played against a team with young players, yet they played to win.

“For us, we can say that we were not lucky in the match after the many chances we missed, especially in the first half. We will try to be better next year,” Sanchez said.

“We gained a lot of experience as we played teams that we don’t play in Asia. We have to keep working in the future,” he said.