Yemen was eliminated from the Asian Nations Youth Cup qualifiers following losing 1-0 to Japan, to fail to finish second in Group C.
The first half of the match ended in a 0-0 draw, and according to the Yemeni Football Association correspondent, the Japanese team might not shoot any ball on the goal, amid great brilliance from Yemen’s midfielders and defense.
The youth of Yemen continued to hold out during the second half and tried to snatch the winning goal on more than one occasion – according to the Yemeni Federation’s correspondent always -.
But a goal by friendly fire in a deadly timing of the match, by defender Jamil Al-Dabai, at the 84th minute, wasted the wonderful work provided by his colleagues throughout the two halves of the meeting.
The expected confrontation of the Yemeni team for the U-20 youth team once morest its Japanese counterpart, which started at nine o’clock this morning Sunday (GMT), 11:00 am local time. Egypt12:00 noon KSA time.
The Asian Football Confederation and the Organizing Committee in Laos refused to broadcast the match live, following preventing the director of the official page of the Yemeni Federation on Facebook from using the federation’s camera to transmit the events of the meeting to the public.
The Yemeni national team played today’s match with a lineup consisting of “Bassam Farid 1 – Muhammad Naji 4 – Hisham Balabil 13 – Imad Al-Jadima 5 – Faisal Al-Maaroufi 2 – Alaa Osha 8 – Jamil Al-Daba’i 15 – Hassan Al-Komani 6 – Abdul Rahman Al-Shami 10 – Muhammad Bouchi 7.” Hamza Mahrous 20».
With its victory over Yemen, Japan led the group with a full mark (12 points from 4 matches), becoming the first to qualify for the AFC U-20 Nations Cup, to be held in Uzbekistan in 2023.
The confrontation of Yemen is the most difficult for Japan in these qualifiers, as they beat the trio of “Laos, Guam and Palestine” with broad results, and scored a total of 21 goals, but the Japanese computer found it difficult to decipher the Yemeni defense today.
The system of the Asian Nations Youth Qualifiers provides for the cancellation of points and goals scored once morest the bottom of the group if it includes 5 teams. This means that the Yemeni team was eliminated from the qualifiers with 4 points in second place, not 7 points, following canceling its result once morest the bottom “Guam”.
Palestine is in third place with one point from a draw with Yemen following canceling its points once morest Guam.
The Palestinian national team has a unique opportunity to reach the Asian Youth Finals if it wins by a wide score over Laos later today.
The bench for the youth team of Yemen
On the bench of Yemen’s substitutes were “Ahmed Al-Sawadi – Abdul Rahman Al-Raymi – Muhammad Radi – Muhammad Al-Dambar – Hassan Ayyash – Mamdouh bin Ajaj – Zakaria Al-Tatouf – Muhammad Al-Shami – Osama Makraf – Osama Al-Matari – Ammar Al-Qubati – Qasim Al-Sharafi.”