Qatar – Iran: Stone Age Mentality

After hearing the news that the match will not be televised, the first thing we did was to check the date. Was it April 01? Was this a poor attempt of a joke?

But this is not the first time that the Qatari officials resort to such tactics. Iran met Qatar in Doha in March 2007, in preparation for the Asian Cup, and on that occasion the Qatari officials also decided to ban TV cameras from the stadium, so that their opponents could not analyse their game plan. Needless to say, such mentality didn't help Qatar, as they finished bottom of their group in the 2007 Asian Cup, behind Japan, Vietnam, and UAE.

Thursday's game between Qatar and Iran finished 0-0.

Iran will fly to Kish from Qatar, and will play its next friendly game against Mali on 13 January. We do hope that we can bring you a better coverage of that game.

IRAN: Vaezi, Kaebi, Aghili, Hosseini, Nikbakht, Jabbari, Karimi, M Zare, Madanchi, Khalili, Rajabzadeh.