Maldives end Pak run
Maldives moved into the final of the third South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship with a solitary goal win over high-flying Pakistan in the yesterday's first semifinal at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
Midfielder Ibrahim Fazeel scored the all-important goal 12 minutes into the first half that ensured the tiny islanders their second final appearance in the biggest football festival of this region.
Maldives were thrashed 1-5 by two times champions India in the first SAFF Championship final in Kathmandu way back in 1997.
Maldives will now face hosts Bangladesh in Monday's final. Matiur Munna notched the golden goal to beat India 2-1 in the other semifinal yesterday.
Maldives, who had gone through remarkable improvement in couple of years, played entertaining football against the physically imposing Pakistanis.
Maldives launched a series of attacks and broke apart the Pakistan defence time and again. But they failed to score more than once because of poor finishing.
The lone goal of the match came from a flag-kick from the right. Nizam curled in the ball inside the box and Fazeel fired in a powerful volley that hit inside the cross after brushing the fingers of Pakistan custodian Jaffar Khan. Much to the relief of Maldives coach Jozef Jiankech and his charges, the ball kissed the net after hitting the ground.
Pakistan however should head home happy as they stole the limelight by winning all the three group matches that included their first ever victory (1-0) against bitter rivals India.
Pakistan launched some offensives early in second half but failed to score due to poor marksmanship. Their lack of technique was nakedly exposed against the skillful Maldives players, who intensified their attack later in the match. They were about to double the margin when Nizam once again sent a thorough to Fazeel slicing the Pakistan defence.
But Fazeel's angular shot from the edge of the box narrowly missed the far post inches in the 68th minute.
TEAMS
Maldives: Imran, Ibrahim, Fazeel (Ismail), Nizam (Sabah), Ali Umar, Azeem, Assad, Ahmed, Jameel, Lutfy and Ali Shiham (Naseem).
Pakistan: Jaffar, Haroon, Sarfaraz, Tanveer, Zakir, Sazzad (Khuda Bux), Ashfaq, Ayaz, Qadeer, Shahid and Amir Khan.
Referee: Budhi Bahadur Gurung (Nepal).
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