Qatar Win West Zone Qualifiers

Qatar emerged winners of the 2012 AFC Futsal Championship, West Zone qualifying campaign with a 3-2 extra-time victory over hosts Kuwait at the Al Qadsia Futsal Stadium. With both the teams having already booked their tickets to next year’s continental finals in the UAE the final match of the nine-team qualification campaign on Friday was all about regional honour. Qatar took the early initiative with Amro Mohssein putting the visitors one up with just three minutes into the match. However, the advantage was short-lived with Abdulrahman Al Taweel equalising for Kuwait just six minutes later. The game remained locked at 1-1 until the 32nd minute when Ahmad Raja restored Qatar’s lead and it was looking like the 31-year-old’s eighth of the qualifiers was enough to give victory to the visitors but a Saad Al Shahwani own goal drew Kuwait level and took the match into extra-time. It was Rodrigo who once again emerged the hero for Qatar when the Brazil-born star, whose extra-time hat-trick against Lebanon took his team to the final, netted the only goal six minutes into the first period of additional time with his 16th of the campaign to seal a victorious campaign for the Qataris. Lebanon became the third and final team to qualify after defeating Iraq, 1-0, in the third-place playoff at the Al Qadisa Futsal Stadium. Iraq held the psychological edge going into the match that would determine who would progress to next year’s finals alongside Qatar and Kuwait having already defeated the Lebanese 4-1 in the Group Stage. However, Friday’s match was a much closer affair that was ultimately settled in four minutes into the second-half when Khaled Takaji netted what transpired to be the only goal of the game, which sent Lebanon, who reached the quarter-finals of the last three AFC Futsal Championships, through to UAE 2012.