Metsu confident of Asian glory

Bruno Metsu believes hosts Qatar remain on track in their preparations for the Asian Cup, despite losing to North Korea in a friendly on Friday.

Qatar went down 1-0 in their final warm-up game before the tournament begins on January 7, but the defeat was only Qatar’s first in four matches after a run that included morale-boosting wins over Estonia and Egypt.

Taking into account their recent form, Frenchman Metsu remains confident that his team will be ready for the curtain-raiser against Uzbekistan.

“We played very good games against Estonia and Egypt and so I’m really happy because we have prepared the team well from the Gulf Cup until now,” Metsu said.

“We won against Egypt, we won against Estonia and we drew against Iran. These are very tough teams. Today we played against a very good North Korean team and our team is very well prepared. We are now going to focus more over the next week.”

“We allowed some players to rest for this game, which is why we made some changes.”

“We have seen all of the players playing at a good level and that’s why I’m very satisfied with them and this will be a very good advantage for us for the opening game.”

“We played against a very good team and they have good experience, they played at the World Cup. In the first half we played very good football and in the second half we changed many players to allow them to rest.”

“Last week we were under pressure because we played three games in less than a week, we played Iran and North Korea and we tried to make some changes to make sure the players are really prepared for the tournament.”

“Next week we will be focusing on tactics and fitness to make sure everybody is ready for the Asian Cup.”