At the Reid Avenue Racecourse Grounds in Colombo, Sri Lanka secured a narrow 1–0 victory over Turkmenistan in the football match held yesterday (9).
This match was conducted as part of Group D qualifiers for the upcoming Asian Championship Football Tournament, scheduled to take place in about 14 months.
Although Turkmenistan is ranked 138th and Sri Lanka 197th in the FIFA world rankings, the skills displayed by both teams during the game showed little difference in performance.
Both sides missed several scoring opportunities in the first half, which ended with no goals recorded.
However, 21 minutes into the second half, P. M. Liyan scored the only goal of the match, securing victory for Sri Lanka.
During the game, Anujan Rajendran from the Sri Lankan team and Sapagul Yev from the Turkmenistan team were shown yellow cards by the referee.
With this win, Sri Lanka managed to equal Turkmenistan’s six points in Group D. However, due to goal difference, Turkmenistan still holds first place in the group standings.
So far, Sri Lanka has defeated Chinese Taipei 3–1 but lost to Thailand 0–1 in previous Group D matches. Accordingly, the Sri Lankan team must play one more round of matches against these same three teams.
Sri Lanka and Turkmenistan had previously met six times on the football field. Turkmenistan won five of those matches, while the remaining one ended in a draw.
Reported by SEEVALIE EDIRIWEERA