Losing to Iran, China's women's futsal team's dream of attending the World Cup is shattered

The third-place match of the Asian Women's Futsal Championship took place this afternoon (May 17) in Hohhot City (Inner Mongolia, China), which is also the play-off match for a ticket to the 2025 World Cup finals (to be held in November this year, in the Philippines).

Iran women's futsal team (white shirt) won the last ticket to the World Cup (Photo: AFC).

Both sides played with determination, before the Iranian women's futsal team found the opening goal in the 15th minute. In this phase, Chinese goalkeeper Liu Danping blocked two consecutive shots from Rahmati and Nasimeh Gholami of Iran. But Liu Danping was helpless against Torkaman's rebound shot. Iran took the lead 1-0.

After conceding the goal, the home team attacked strongly. In the first minute of the second half (in futsal, each half is 20 minutes, not counting the time the ball is out of play), the Chinese women's futsal team found the equalizer.

Su Jiahong turned around and eliminated the Iranian defender, before she passed the ball to Cao Jiayi, who finished accurately, scoring the equalizer 1-1 for the Chinese women's futsal team.

The Chinese women's futsal team stopped right before the World Cup (Photo: AFC).

However, the final moments of the match were when the Iranian female players clearly demonstrated their bravery, experience and better physical strength than their Chinese female counterparts.

In the 30th minute, Iran's Mehdi Pour fired a powerful shot that beat goalkeeper Liu Danping, raising the score to 2-1 for Iran.

It must also be said that the home team China was unlucky in this match. Zou Yinglan's shot beat Iran's goalkeeper Tavasoli a few minutes later, but the ball bounced off the post.

The Chinese women's futsal team was even more disappointed that they could not score in this situation. In the last minute of the match, Torkaman took advantage of the Chinese players leaving the goal open to play a power-play (using all 5 attacking players), she kicked the ball into the empty net, sealing a 3-1 victory for Iran.

This victory brought the West Asian team to the 2025 Women's Futsal World Cup. Meanwhile, the Chinese women's futsal team had to stop right at the threshold of the World Cup.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/thua-iran-doi-tuyen-futsal-nu-trung-quoc-tan-mong-du-world-cup-20250517183604146.htm