Forty thousands of fans, who left no free seats at the International Stadium Khalifa on the opening day, clearly indicated the highest expectations of the organizers from the continental championship. However, all efforts of the hosts to succeed failed - Vadim Abramov’s men looked superior to the team of naturalized legionnaires of French manager Bruno Metsu and made a deserved victory - 2:0.

Uzbek players were much better on the pitch, and only shared the initiative with the home team in the last 15 minutes of the first half. But if this quarter of an hour before the break sown some sparks of hope in hearts of the Qatari, the long-range shot by Odil Ahmedov on the 59^th minute chilled them a bit, and the Server Djeparov’s goal 12 minutes later left no chances for the home team to win.

“I am very happy that we managed to get three points in the first match and start the tournament with a win,” Vadim Abramov said after the match. “The entire midfield played great today, Ahmedov, Haidarov, and Andreyev did very well... I think it is still not our best game and the team will be able to do even better. We have a long bench, and everyone wants to play. We have a long way ahead, I hope. "

“Defeat of Qatar does not mean that the team is not strong. I think we well prepared for the tournament and knew what to expect from the opponent. We managed to cope with the excitement but national team of Qatar did not. They had bad ball possession, and lost the initiative,” said Bunyodkor Tashkent midfielder, Timur Kapadze. And team captain Server Djeparov, who made his traditional acrobatic flip after scoring, said: “The first game is always difficult, so we are glad to get three points. Guessing the results of next games is still too early - time will show. But we came here to get to the trophy. It is our dream.”

The second step to make it come true, the national team of Uzbekistan made on Wednesday in the match against Kuwait, which started the championship with a defeat against China - 0:2 and really needed to win. Needed, but could not, our guys did not allowed them to! However, the match at the Al-Garafa stadium was harder than the first one.

But Djeparov did not lie when telling about the team’s goal. Two goals scored in each half brought them one step closer to achieving it. At the end of the first period, Maksim Shatskih punished Kuwaitis from a free kick for a tough tackle on Aleksander Geinrikh: the ball ricocheted from the back of Aziz Haydarov who was standing in the wall and it confused goalkeeper Nawaf Al Khaldi. The equalizer scored by Bader Al-Mutawa from the penalty spot in the very beginning of the second half, did not confuse Vadym Abramov, who made the right choice to replace the author of the first goal with Jasur Hasanov on the 62^nd minute. Two minutes later his pass from the side found Djeparov on the line of the penalty area, and the latter struck the volley to once again show viewers his acrobatic skills - 2:1. At the end of the match Kuwaitis went on a desperate assault on Ignatiy Nesterov’s goal, but the keeper of Uzbekistan national team was good.