Maldives emerged victorious with an impressive score in the sixth matchday of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification’s third round, held on Tuesday.
The national team beat Bhutan with a score of seven to nothing, in what was their first match since having former Afghanistani head coach, Petyr Segar, appointed as theirs.
This is also their first match since having captain Ashad Ali replaced with Akram Abdul Ghani. The team scored shortly after half an hour since kickoff.
The team got an opportunity to score through a penalty kick only nine minutes in, to no avail. Hamza Mohamed secured the only goal in the first half on the 34th minute of the match.
Soon after the referee’s whistle for the second half, Maldives’ Naiz Hassan scored his team’s second goal on the 65th minute of the match.
Ibrahim Waheed Hassan, playing on the national team for the first time, scored four minutes after and Naiz Hassan scored his team’s fourth goal, and his second, on the 77th minute of the match.
Naiz scored again two minutes later, performing a hat trick, and again on the 81st minute of the match. Defender Hussain Sifaau Yusuf scored his team’s seventh and final goal.
Oman and Palestine are leading in Group D, in first and second places respectively, with 15 points each. Maldives is fourth with six points and Bhutan has yet to secure a single point in this round’s six matches.
Maldives has lost four of six matches they’ve played and has had 19 goals scored against them. The national team has lost to Oman and Palestine and is currently 18th on the ‘bye to second round’ ranking.
