Kuwait coach proud in defeat

Kuwait coach Goran Tufegdzic said he was proud of his young squad, despite their 2-1 loss to Uzbekistan on Wednesday.

Kuwait fought back bravely after going a goal down just before half-time, when a Maksim Shatskikh free-kick took a cruel deflection past goalkeeper Nawaf Alkhaldi.

They equalised through a penalty from Bader Al Mutwa just after the break, but Server Djeparov sealed the win for Uzbekistan with a spectacular long-range effort on the hour mark.

Tufegdzic said while he was disappointed with the result, there was a lot to like about his young team’s efforts.

“Now this is a very bad feeling,” the Serb said. “Our team lost this match but we have one match remaining against Qatar. Our target is to win that match and pick up our first three points of the tournament.”

“Maybe my players need more experience but what can you do? These things happen and one thing is for sure is that these players have a good future.”

“They are very young; the average age of our squad is under 23.”

“You saw today our team have the players to get a good result but they need experience.”

Uzbekistan coach Vadim Abramov – whose side became the first to qualify for the knockout stage with the win – was delighted with the result, but wary of the forthcoming threat posed by the more-fancied nations.

“I’m very happy that we beat Kuwait today,” he said. “I think we can spring a surprise here.”

“I hope that Uzbekistan will become the champions, but there are lots of other good teams here as well, like Australia, South Korea, Japan and Iran.”