Oman registered their third victory in the AFC Asian Qualifiers – Road to Qatar after defeating Vietnam 1-0 in the penultimate match of group B on Thursday at the My Dinh Stadium in Hanoi city.
Khalid al Hajri’s header in the 64th minute sealed the triumph for the “Red Warriors” and increased the Sultanate of Oman’s tally to 11 points in fourth place while the hosts Vietnam remained in the bottom of the group with three points only. Oman will meet China in the concluding game of the qualifiers on Tuesday in Muscat at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex venue.
The national team head coach, Branko Ivankovic, began the match against Vietnam with a starting line up featuring Ibrahim al Mukhaini as a goalkeeper.
Ahmed al Kaabi, Amjad al Harthi, Juma al Habsi and Ahmed al Khamisi were in defending line. In the midfield, Harib al Saadi led the line besides Abdullah Fawaz, Salah al Yahyaei and Arshad al Alawi. Khalid al Hajri and Zahir al Aghbari were the attackers in the front line.
Both halves registered a series of missing scoring attempts especially in the second half. The hosts players commenced the first half through pressing towards Oman’s goalkeeper Ibrahim al Mukhaini.
Despite both teams out from competition on the top three places in the group, they showed top performance during the match in purpose of registering a win and improving Fifa world ranking.
In the 8th minute, Nguyen Quang Hai passed to Nguyen Tien Linh who tried to send the right footed shot from outside the box but his ball went away from the goal.
Oman’s response came in the 20th minute as Zahir Al Aghbari missed his chance after he footed shot from outside the box but misses to the left. Vietnam pressed hard in the last 20 minutes but without any changes in the result of first half which ended in a goalless draw.
The Croatian coach began the second half with a substitution by replacing Zahir al Aghbari with Jameel al Yahmadi. The head coach of Vietnam, Park, instructed his players to focus on attacking to register the opening goal of the match.
Ho Tan Tai was very close to score but his golden opportunity was missed. Tai was facing Oman’s goalkeeper individually in the 46th minute. In another attempt, Ibrahim was the man and saved a strong header of Pham Tuan Hai after a cross by Ho Tan Tai in the 58th minute.
The first presence of Oman’s strikers in the second half was in the 64th minute.
From this presence, Khalid al Hajri managed to open the account as he scored the opening goal from a header. Salah al Yahyaei assisted in the first goal as he crossed the ball from a corner.
Oman’s goalkeeper Ibrahim al Mukhaini was very active during the game as he saved Nguyen Quang Hai’s shot from outside the box and converted into the corner. The match ended with the only goal scored by Al Hajri.
