Uzbekistan to face Turkmenistan in their opener at AFC Women’s Futsal Championship

Uzbekistan will take their first steps in the AFC Women’s Futsal Championship in the knowledge that a win over Turkmenistan on Saturday will book their place in the Knockout Stage.

With only three teams in Group D, a positive result against their Central Asian neighbours will secure a place in Wednesday’s quarter-finals, no matter what happens when they meet Islamic Republic of Iran on Monday.

Having seen reigning champions Iran put 14 goals past Turkmenistan, Maksumov said having the day off on Matchday One would benefit his side.

“Yes, I do believe that gives us an advantage to have the opportunity to watch our opponents and study them before our first match,” he said.

Uzbekistan reaching the Knockout Stage would be a first. They were led by Maksumov at the 2015 AFC Women’s Futsal Championship in Malaysia, facing group stage elimination after defeats to Iran and the host nation.

They are also a team with regular futsal experience. In a tournament where many teams feature a mixture of league futsal players and 11-a-sde footballers, Uzbekistan’s team divide their time between both formats.

“My players play futsal and also football,” Maksumov revealed.

“We play our futsal championship for only three months during winter and other than that we play football.

“We had only one week of preparation for this tournament but we have experience because we have participated before (in 2015), and we’ve changed players since then.”

Turkmenistan also remain in contention for the Knockout Stage, but Kamil Mingazov’s side will need to bounce back quickly after being outclassed by one of the tournament’s hot favourites in their first taste of tournament action.

“Iran are a very strong team so we actually expected that we would lose,” revealed former Turkmen football star Mingazov.

“In the changing room I didn’t shout. I just said to them ‘look guys, we played them and we struggled, but we move on’, and we will focus on our strengths in the next game.”

Despite the countries sharing a border, Mingazov said Uzbekistan’s absence from top level competition since 2015, and non-attendance in last year’s Asian Indoor Games women’s futsal tournament, makes them a difficult team to prepare for.

“We don’t have a lot of knowledge about our next opponents,” he said.

“We haven’t played against them in any games before and they weren’t in the competition last year in Ashgabat.”