Kuwait coach happy in face of defeat

Kuwait coach Goran Tufegdzic has praised his side’s resilience despite their 2-0 loss to China in their Asian Cup opener on Saturday.

The Gulf Cup champions were dealt a huge blow in the 35th minute at Al Gharafa Stadium in Qatar when defender Musaed Neda was dismissed for kicking out at Yang Xu.

But Kuwait defied their numerical disadvantage and could quite easily have taken an unexpected lead when Hussain Fadhel prodded just wide before the break, while China keeper Yang Zhi needed to be aware to stop Bader Mutawa’s freekick early in the second half.

Goals to Zhang Linpeng’s in the 58th minute and a Deng Zhuoxiang free-kick nine minutes later sealed what appeared to be a comfortable victory for China, but Tufegdzic refused to dwell on what might have been with Neda on the pitch.

“This game was very important for us and before the dismissal of Neda we were the better team and controlled the match,” said the Serbian.

“I think you saw at the end of the first half my team still played very well without 11 players, same at the start of the second half.”

“When you concede a goal and you are without a player it is very difficult to combat this, but generally I am satisfied with how we played with one less player.”

Tufegdzic was quick to lavish praise on the Chinese and admitted it was always going to be difficult against such opponents.

“China have a very strong team,” he added. “They are very disciplined with very good individual players.”

“For example Yu Hai, Rong Hao and Du Wei are all very, very good players. When our team lost a player it is very difficult to play against a team like China.”

“This was only the first match and it has not finished our chances. This match has changed things for us but we still cannot talk about our chances.”

Kuwait next face joint group-leaders Uzbekistan on Wednesday, fresh from their 2-0 win over Qatar in their opening match on Friday.