Courtesy: The AFC.com


Targholizade: best of the West on show

Friday, 09 December 2011

Kuala Lumpur: AFC Director of Futsal, Ali Targholizade, is anticipating some exciting and highly competitive matches throughout the 2012 AFC Futsal Championship, West Zone qualifying campaign, which kicks-off in Kuwait on Friday.
The opening round of matches sees hosts Kuwait take on Saudi Arabia in the later match at Al Qadsia Futsal Stadium after Qatar has played Syria in the earlier fixture at the same venue.

Meanwhile over at the Al Arabi Futsal Stadium the UAE, who will host the 2012 Futsal Championship next May, take on Lebanon after which Iraq will face Bahrain.

"The West Zone qualifiers will be very challenging for the participating teams and I believe the nine Arab countries taking part will provide exciting matches on the way to identifying the top three teams for the finals," Targholizade told www.the-afc.com.

"Futsal is very popular in Kuwait and I hope the fans will fully support what will be a very interesting event."

The West Zone qualifiers is following last month's campaign for teams from the East Zone and while there was no shortage of excitement on the court, the lack of spectators in KL took a little bit of the gloss off of the event.

"Futsal is incredibly popular in the East Zone, and usually we always have one or two East Asian sides in the semi-finals of the AFC Futsal Championship, but unfortunately we didn't have many spectators for the East Zone qualifiers because it was held in neutral Malaysia," continued Targholizade.

"What we did see was a very high level of competition from a technical and tactical aspect and this was clear from the improvement in futsal functions, rotations and skill.

"Teams are continuing to get more and more professional and I believe this is the outcome of more education and coaching courses conducted by the member associations.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com