Yet still six points allowed the Central Asian squad to feel much more confident than three other teams: a draw or a loss with one goal difference was enough for Vadim Abramov’s men in the match against China, while for Qatar and Kuwait a win was not enough, they also had to rely, though and hope for a right outcome in the match Uzbekistan - China.

Chinese players, as noted by the head coach of Uzbekistan, went on the pitch extremely motivated: in order to not depend on the outcome of the match between Qatar and Kuwait, they needed a win with a two goals margin. And they opened the score so quickly (Yu Hai made the opener already sixth minutes after the whistle), that it seemed: the second goal is only a matter of time. Uzbek players, however, were a goal down for the first time in the championship, but that did not make them flinch. At the end of the first 30 minutes Odil Akhmedov got a pass from Server Djeparov, and lobed the ball over the Chinese goalkeeper Yang Zhi - 1:1.

Immediately after the break, Aleksandr Geinrikch upset the Celestial players again - 2:1. And although ten minutes later the Chinese managed to even the score, it was all they could do. Actually, it was the team of Uzbekistan that not allowed the strong opponents to do more. “I would like to thank the players for their commitment,” Vadim Abramov said after the match. “The match was quite tough. Today we spent more time defending, since the score was not in favor of the opponent. If it would have been different, perhaps, we would try to create more chances. The result was achieved in a difficult struggle. But it was good for us.

The second qualifier to the quarterfinals from group A to huge delight of the local audience was Qatari footballers, who scored three unanswered goals against Kuwait. Rivals of Uzbekistan and Qatar in the ¼ finals were known a day later, when final matches in Group B were played. The situation there was also complicated, but only with three teams having chances to qualify, as bad performance of Saudi Arabia, who were considered one of the favorites (in the last seven championships of Asia, they played in six finals, and won three of them) closed the door to the next stage after two matches.

It was expected that the Saudis would try to at least slam the door in the last game with the Japanese. By the way, this match was successfully, as always, refereed by Ravshan Irmatov, who was recently ranked second best referee of 2010 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) (the first place went to Englishman Howard Webb, who worked on the final match of the World Cup). Well, they did not slam it, but could not even show a decent resistance the players from the Land of the Rising Sun, and suffered a crushing - 0:5.

Thanks to such a score Japan finished on top of the group, and Syria finished on second place with seven points after beating Jordan with a score of 2:1. Thus, on January 21 the first round of the ¼ finals Uzbekistan will play with Jordan and Japan will have a match with Qatar. Wednesday evening decided two more quarterfinal pairs: Australia - Iraq and Iran - Korea.