Pakistan-Qatar Football Clash Today
'Pakistan Times' Wire Service

LAHORE: Pakistan will meet Qatar in an away match of Group-A in the 29th Olympic Games qualifier (second round) Qatar's Al-Gharrafa stadium today, (Wednesday), wrapping up its unsuccessful campagin after successive defeats.

Pakistan badly lost it qualifying round home and away matches against Kuwait,Bahrain and Qatar which suggests that the green shirts need further years long endeavour to match the sparkling skills of their too superior opponents of Asia.

It will be fourth ever clash between two U-21 teams of the two nations in Olympics as before both the teams played two-legged matches in Barcelona Olympics Qualifiers (West/Central Asia Group A).

Qatar won the first leg at Peshawar's Qayyum Stadium by 4-0 on September 13, 1991, followed by 2-0 win in the second leg at Doha just under a month later. The first leg of ongoing event between two nations was played at Islamabad's Jinnah Stadium on March 14, 2007, resulting in 2-0 win for Arabian team.

Earlier Pakistan played the Arabian country thrice in U-19 events, and once in international level. Pakistan lost that international match in 12th Asian Cup (Group-A) 0-5 in April 2000 under Haroon Yousof.

Meanwhile,the three U-19 encounters ended in Qatar 's favour. The match of 24th Asian U19 Championship 1984 at Saudi Arabian city Dammam saw Qatari youngsters overcoming Pakistani Youth team 4-0.

Four years later, in the same event,the two teams met each other twice at Manama, Bahrain. The team under Tahir Mahmood failed to cope with the formidable Qatar team and lost both legs 0-3 and 0-5.

Twenty-four teams from the continent are taking part in the second phase of qualifying rounds to be played on a home-and-away basis.

The teams were divided into six groups of four teams each with group winners and runners-up booking berths in the final qualifying round of AFC.

Pakistani team is under coaching of former Pakistan Railway's winger Muhammad Rasheed.●