Asian Games: Booters stun Qatar, make history

Bangladesh carved a small piece of history by moving into the knockout stage of the football event of the Asian Games for the first time with a stunning 1-0 win over mighty Qatar at the Patriot Stadium in Jakarta yesterday.

Captain Jamal Bhuiyan struck the all-important goal deep into stoppage time of the second half to help Bangladesh U-23 finish behind group champions Uzbekistan with four points from three outings.

Bangladesh had started their campaign with a disappointing 3-0 defeat to former champions Uzbekistan, but the boys in red and green bounced back in the next match against Thailand by playing out a 1-1 draw, despite taking the lead.

Coming into yesterday's final group match against Qatar, who are ranked nearly 100 places above Bangladesh in the FIFA rankings, Bangladesh had a golden opportunity to create history by making it to the knockout stages. The charges of English coach Jamie Day achieved the feat in the dying moments to deliver the kind of rousing result for which football lovers have long been waiting.

As expected, the boys in red and green adopted a counter-attacking strategy and they made their mighty opponents sweat on a few occasions with Mahbubur Rahman Sufil and Biplu Ahmed penetrating the backline on the break at regular intervals. Meanwhile, Bangladesh's backline -- marshalled by Tapu Barman, Tutul Hossain Badsha, Bishwanath Gosh and Sushanta Tripura -- formed an unbreakable fortress and successfully thwarted all attacks by Qatar.

The match finally rolled into the four minutes of added time and Bangladesh survived a strong hand-ball appeal by Sushanta inside the danger zone. The boys then built up attacks from the left flank before the clinical finish by Jamal, who advanced into the box after receiving a neat cut-back from Masuk Mia Jonny to drive a sudden grounder that cannoned into the back of the near-post net to send substitute players and coaching staffs into wild celebrations.