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Asian champs Iraq draw with China in World Cup qualifier
2008-02-06
Asian champions Iraq, down to 10 men for the final 20 minutes, battled to a 1-1 draw with a new-look China here on Wednesday in their opening game of the qualifying campaign of the 2010 World Cup. After a scoreless first 45 minutes, Iraq, fielding a team based on the squad that won the Asian Cup last year, took the lead through a 50th-minute penalty from Hawar Taher. But China, with a team rejigged by newly-installed Serb coach Vladimir Petrovic, hit back with 15 minutes of the game remaining through on-form captain Zheng Zhi, the Charlton Athletic midfielder. Australia top their so-called "group of death" after thumping Qatar 3-0 in the day's other game in Group 1. Only the top two teams progress to the fourth and final round of qualifying for South Africa. Iraq suffered an early hammer blow when talismanic captain and striker Younis Mahmoud, the top scorer in the Asian Cup in July, pulled up injured with just a minute played in the game that took place on neutral territory at the Al Ahli Stadium in Dubai. Mahmoud, who is expected to be out for three weeks, was replaced by Mustafa Karim, and Iraq remained directionless without the skipper's leadership skills in the opening quarter of the game. Iraq's Norwegian coach Egil Olsen admitted the loss of Mahmoud had cost his side dear. "It's so disappointing," he said. "I'm not happy at all with this result because it's not good for us at the beginning of the qualification. "Our main problem was that we started the match without our best player Younis Mahmoud. Then in the second-half, we struggled a lot when Nashrat Akram was sent off. "We were the better side but unfortnuately we couldn't score more goals but we'll try to do better, starting in the next match against Qatar." Despite a late miss that could have won the game for China, Petrovic was satisfied with his team's performance. "It's a good result for us, to get a draw in the first match," said the Serb. "I know we played defensively in the first-half but we were up against the Asian champions with their good strikers so we had to be careful. "But we showed in the second-half that we could play at a good level and we also had many opportunities." China, whose defence easily dealt with the rudderless attack early on, had two first-half chances to score. Qu Bu hit a sweet volley from a left-sided cross in the 23rd minute, but Iraqi goalkeeper Noor Hassan was able to deflect it with a foot. The second chance fell to Zhou Haibin, but his header went wide. For the Iraqis, Mustafa Karim fluffed an early chance, while Iranian referee Mohsen Torky also ruled a goal disallowed after Karrar Muhamed took out Chinese goalkeeper Zong Lei as he headed into an empty net from a long through-ball. When Mustafa Karim was brought down in the area, Taher stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way to send the 15,000 noisy Iraqi fans in the Al Ahli Stadium wild. China came close to equalising in the 65th minute, a Zheng Zhi free-kick seemingly goal-bound from the moment he hit it, but Iraqi defender Jasm al-Hamd was ideally placed at the post to scramble away the ball. Chinese dreams were helped five minutes later when Nashat Akram, at the centre of a diplomatic row after being refused a work permit to play for Sven-Goran Eriksson's Manchester City, received his marching orders after picking up a second yellow card. Iraq faced a tough final 20 minutes with China upping the ante in search for an equaliser, which eventually came from the head of Zheng Zhi, who has been on fire for his English Championship side this season. The Chinese captain rose high above the defenders to head home an inch-perfect cross into the left corner with the Iraqi keeper stranded. China missed a chance to wrap the game up with one minute of regulation time remaining. In a counter-attack from deep, replacement Du Zhenyu missed what could have been a simple tap-in from a right-sided cross from Qu Bu with just the keeper to beat.
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