The goalie who made his team miserable/Messi, Ronaldo and Nematov: Asian comedy! (photo)

Goalkeeper Nasef Qarshi could have brought his team back into the game by scoring from the penalty spot, but his shot was blocked and 35 seconds later, he saw his goal open for the second time.

According to "Varzesh Se", when Abdulvahid Nematov stopped the penalty kick in the 38th minute of the match between Nassaf Qarshi and Al Wahda Emirates, the Uzbek team was behind by one goal and had a golden opportunity to compensate for the result. Nassef's goalkeeper, who has a history of taking penalty kicks, failed to fight with his counterpart this time, and Facundo Lirosi dived to the left and blocked his shot.

Nasef had not recovered from the shock of this missed opportunity when Al-Wahdeh converted the next counter-attack into a goal 35 seconds after saving the penalty. Fakondo Krupski, receiving a deep pass, shot from behind the penalty area and sent the ball into the corner of Nematov's goal. In this way, a situation that could have made the result 1-1 led to a 2-0 advantage for the guests in a short distance.

Of course, Nematov's night had started well. In the first minutes, he blocked the close shot of Christian Benteke, the famous Belgian striker of Al Wahda, but he succumbed to Krupski's shot in the 23rd minute. A missed penalty and conceding a second goal in the final moments of the first half overshadowed all the good things that happened at the beginning of the match.

At the beginning of the second half, Nasef reduced the difference with the goal of Bubir Abdul Khalqov, and continued to put a lot of pressure to reach the equalizing goal. The shots of the players of this team hit the goal post in the 86th and 87th minutes, so that the host's efforts remained fruitless. With a 2-1 win, Al-Wahdeh got six points and became the leader of the first group of the Asian Champions League 2, and Nasef remained in third place with one point.

Giving a penalty to Nematov was not a strange decision. The 25-year-old goalkeeper of Nassef converted his team's penalty against Andijan into a goal in the past weeks. In the 2024 Uzbekistan Super Cup, he also became the star of Nasaf against Pakhtakor, blocked three penalty kicks of the opponent and opened the goal of Pakhtakor himself with a Panenka-style shot.

This was not Nematov's first eventful night against an Asian opponent. Last season, in the meeting with Al-Ahly of Saudi Arabia, Nassaf led the opponent with two goals, but this goalkeeper's big mistake started the return of the Saudi representative. In the 65th minute, Nematov came out of the goal to save the ball, but he could not get it away so that Enzo Milo could aim at the empty net from a long distance. Al-Ahly scored the equalizer three minutes later and finally won with a score of 4:2.

Nematov refused to back down from his decision after the defeat against Al-Wahda and said that he will take responsibility for Nasaf penalties again. "I don't listen to the negative reactions," he said. It was possible that another player was behind the ball and could not score a penalty. I wanted to hit it myself. More than the penalty, I'm upset about the second goal I conceded. "The players performed very well in the second half and if we had equalized by the 80th minute, maybe we could have won the match."

The Nassef goalkeeper emphasized that this failure does not make him give up on taking the next penalties: "From now on, I will take penalties as well. This happened to Ronaldo and Messi. I don't pay attention to negative messages. Those who are unemployed and spend time on the street, sit and write negative comments to others. These people don't only treat me this way, they have the same negative attitude towards everyone else."

Nassaf Qarshi's head coach Rozikul Berdiyev also said in a press conference after the match about Nematov's missed penalty: "I thought that Sharov Mukhit Dinov would take the penalty, because he practices penalty kicks many times in training, but for whatever reason, Abdulvahid decided to stand behind the ball himself. First Sharov went to the ball, but finally Nematov hit the shot. Perhaps scoring a penalty in the previous match had also influenced the decision of other players. We always say that the player who has more confidence should take the penalty. This was a decision made within the team. Naturally, it was a risk, but if Nematov scored the ball, everyone would say it was the right decision."

In response to the possibility of increasing criticism of Nematov and making changes in the composition of the goalkeepers, Nassaf head coach also said: "There is no pressure from our side on Abdulvahid and he is able to withstand these conditions. We have other options and we will decide based on the situation. Our players do not read online comments. We trust the team and Nematov, because he has won many matches for us. "If someone writes a negative message to Abdul Wahid, it is not our problem and the club will not put any pressure on him."