Uzbekistan can take it easy against Turkmenistan after their win over Saudi Arabia

UzLand.Uz July 23 The mood in the Uzbekistan camp was one of understandable delight on Friday after Alexander Geynrikh’s lone goal against Saudi Arabia the night before ensured that the Central Asian side made it through to the quarter-finals for the first time in three attempts. “With this win, we reached the quarter-final stage, and can look at possibly the semi-finals and final. We are the best team so far and we proved it by becoming the first team to qualify for the last eight,” said Uzbekistan’s goalscoring hero to FootballAsia.com. “We have made a lot of progress this year and I think we are improving all the time. Our confidence is sky-high right now. We don’t really want to use up all our luck now because you need some of that to win the Asian Cup. But we feel on top of the clouds, although we still have to go and prove ourselves against the best.” With defender Alexey Nikolaev absent after being shown the red card in the 1-0 opening win against Iraq, Nikolay Shirshov stepped in to take over the vacant position against the Saudis. Discussing the match at lunchtime on Friday with skipper Mirdjalal Kasimov and fellow defender Andrev Fyodorov, Shirshov described the daunting challenge that his team had overcome. “It was a difficult game due to the wet pitch after the rain and we found it more difficult than usual to control the ball. [Fyodorov] and I had some minor injuries, but we are okay now,” said the 20-year-old who plays for Russian side Rostov. “It took eight whole years and three tournaments to help Uzbekistan qualify for the quarter-final stage of the Asian Cup,” added veteran Kasimov. “It is obvious that it was not our time at those tournaments but it could be the right time now.” With their quarter-final passage secured, the Uzbeks could consider resting some of their players ahead of the knockout stage. “Our next game is important, but after qualifying for the next stage, I guess we could rest our main players and prepare ourselves for our quarter-final opponents,” said team coordinator Samvel Babayan after the match against Saudi Arabia.