jordan pulse -

The national team stands on the verge of achieving a historic achievement by reaching the semi-finals of the Asian Football Cup in Qatar, when it meets Tajikistan on Friday, at the start of the quarter-finals.

At Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium, Al-Hussein Amouta, the coach of the “Nashama” team, will rely on the high morale gained by his players after the exciting 3-2 victory over Iraq in the round of 16.

The national team reached the quarter-finals for the third time in its history, after the 2004 edition of China, led by the late Egyptian coach Mahmoud El-Gohary, and Qatar 2011, led by Iraqi coach Adnan Hamad, which is the best achievement for Jordanian football.

Amouta is armed with the effectiveness of his offensive line, which consists of the trio Musa Al-Taamari, Yazan Al-Naimat and Ali Alwan, but he may face great difficulties in front of the Tajik national team’s defense, which has conceded 3 goals in 4 matches.

Moussa Al-Taamari, a professional for the French club Montpellier, and Mahmoud Mardi, a player for Al-Hussein Irbid, each scored two goals in the opening match against Malaysia, but both of them refrained from scoring in three consecutive matches (Al-Taamari missed the match against Bahrain completely), which witnessed the brilliance of Yazan Al-Naimat, a professional for the Qatari club Al-Ahly, by scoring two goals. Against South Korea and Iraq.

Nizar Al-Rashdan will be the most prominent absentee from the national team due to the accumulation of warnings, as he received the second yellow card, after celebrating scoring the winning goal against Iraq in stoppage time.

The national team qualified for the quarter-finals after coming third in Group Five with 4 points, behind Bahrain with 6 points, and South Korea with 5 points, before surpassing Iraq 3-2 in the round of 16.

black Horse

On the other hand, the Tajikistan national team is considered the dark horse in the tournament after skipping the first round, then achieving a huge surprise after eliminating its Emirati counterpart on penalty kicks 5-3 after a 1-1 draw.

Reaching the quarter-finals is considered a major achievement for the Tajikistan national team, which is participating in the Asian Cup finals for the first time in its history, and its only continental achievement is winning the Asian Challenge Cup in 2006.

Croatian Petar Shigert, the coach of the Tajikistan national team, aspires to continue his adventure and reach the semi-finals, relying on the brilliance of the trio, Wahidat Azmatwit, Nurdin Khamrokulov, and Parvizdzhon Omarbayev, each of whom scored a goal in the current tournament.

The Tajikistan national team qualified for the round of 16 by finishing second in Group A with 4 points, behind leaders Qatar (9), and ahead of China and Lebanon.

The Tajik national and Tajik teams last met two and a half months ago in Dushanbe at the opening of their journey in the joint Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup scheduled for the United States, Canada, Mexico and the 2027 Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia, where the confrontation ended in a 1-1 draw.

Before that, the “Nashama” team excelled in confrontations with its Tajik counterpart, with 3 victories and one loss.

Kingdom + AFP