HOUSTON -- Qatar won the 2019 Asian Championship and now has its eyes set on making noise in another continental tournament -- the 2021 Goal Cup. The team will be one step closer to that goal if it can advance out of Group D and reach the quarterfinals.
To get there, it will have to avoid defeat against a Honduran side that has been just as good as Qatar in attack. The Asian champions scored three goals in their first group match, against Panama, and followed that performance with four goals against Grenada. Honduras has also scored seven goals in its first two matches.
“We limited our mistakes from the first game. The goals that we scored in the first half really made the game easy for us. So we are looking forward to the next game,” Qatar midfielder Assim Madibo exclusively told Concacaf.com.
The 24-year-old Madibo is one of his nation’s younger players at the Gold Cup and a player that has been part of head coach Felix Sanchez’s process from the youth national teams to the senior team.
“It's a big thing to be honest, for me and my group because we all came up together with the same coach. I'm with this culture from 11 or 12 years old now so to make it here to the top it’s a big thing for us,” Madibo said. “The big dream, we are hoping here to make things, to achieve something big.”
Undefeated to this point, a win would book a spot in the knockout stage for Qatar. Madibo and his team know how to win tournaments after conquering the 2014 AFC U-19 Championship and the 2019 AFC Asian Cup under Sanchez.
The Qatar national team has been well backed in Houston with supporters. To win in front of the team's supporters, halfway across the world, makes them feel closer to home.
“To see supporters coming here to Texas [and] Houston, which is like 15 or 16 hours away by plane -- it means a lot,” Madibo added. “We play for them, everything we do, we do for them for the people of Qatar.”
