Qatar will be hoping that the right chapter of history repeats itself when they take on Uzbekistan in today’s 2018 World Cup Group A qualifier.
The match, to be played at the Al Sadd stadium, is Qatar’s second in the third round of qualification from Asia and Qatar will be looking to take advantage of the home conditions in the hope of bouncing back from their last-gasp defeat to Iran in Tehran last Thursday.
The Uzbeks are going to be tough opponents for Qatar. In the previous six World Cup qualifying matches that these two sides have played against each other, the Uzbeks have won four of them and drawn one. And they have won with big margins – 5-1 (2013) and 4-0 (2009).
But the one match that Qatar won (2008) was at this ground. The hosts can also take confidence from the fact that the last time these two teams met – in a friendly last October — Qatar emerged victorious 3-0.  
Qatar, however, are fretting over injuries to Pedro Miguel and Hassan al-Haydos who are doubtful for the match, although Coach Carreno was not short on confidence.
“The situation after the first round of matches will put us under a lot of pressure to win as we lost against Iran and Uzbekistan defeated Syria. However, I’m confident that our players will give their best tomorrow and will get the three points from the match although it will not be easy,” said the Uruguayan.
“We played with a lot of determination in the first match against Iran and we will be playing with the same mentality against Uzbekistan. We will forget the first match now and we will focus on giving our best, especially because we will be playing at home and in front of our fans.”
The Uzbeks are ranked 55th while Qatar are currently at 80. But the hosts will take heart from the fact that during their match against the higher ranked Iran (39), they were up for the fight until a horrible error from goalkeeper Claude Amine — in the fourth minute of injury time — resulted in them falling behind, and then they conceded another goal in the 101st minute.   
After today’s match, Qatar have games against lower-ranked Syria and China (whom they have defeated in the second round) coming up. A win here can help Carreno’s boys revive their qualifying campaign and boost their confidence (and points) going into those matches.

confident Uzbeks
The Uzbeks are coming off a 1-0 win against Syria in their opening encounter and they will be keen to maintain their recent good run against Qatar in the World Cup qualifiers.
“Qatar will be a hard team to beat because they had a good performance in the first match. I told the players that we will be playing against a strong team with good character and this means that we should concentrate throughout the match,” said Uzbek coach Samvel Babayan.
The match will start at 7pm.

“Qatar will be a hard team to beat because they had a good performance in the first match. I told the players that we will
be playing against a strong
team with good character and this means that we should concentrate throughout the match,” said Uzbek coach Samvel Babayan