Palestine clinched title of the 5th edition of prestigious Bangabandhu International Gold Cup Football tournament beating ten men Tajikistan by 4-3 goals in penalty shootout in the keenly contested final held on Friday in country’s premier venue Bangabandhu National Stadium, reports BSS.
The match rolled into a tie breaker after the regulation time and extra time ended in a goalless draw.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was the chief guest in the final and she distributed the prizes after the match.
In the day’s tie breaker, Ojbek Abdugafforov, Axtam Nazarov and Sijovus Asrorov scored one goal each for Tajikistan while Komron Tursunov and Davlatmir Tabrezi missed.
On the other hand, Jonathan Zorrilla, Mahmoud Al Iwisat, Sijovus Asrorov, Musa’b Al Battat and Abdullatif Al Bahdari scored one goal each for Palestine.
The contested final match was studded with full of excitement as both the sides launched attacks and counter attacks in the proceeding and also missed some real scoring chances.
Palestine took control of the match in the very beginning but spoiled several chances while Tajikistan also launched counter attacks but failed to convert those into a goal.
Fatxullo Fatxulloev of Tajikistan was shown direct red card Bangladeshi referee Mohamed Mizanur Rahman for his unsporting behavior in the 36th minute of the match.
Earlier, in the group phase matches, Palestine beat Tajikistan 2-0 in their group opening match and defeated defending champions Nepal by 1-0 to emerge as group A champions.
On the other hand, Tajikistan beat Nepal by 2-0 goals but lost to Palestine by 2-0 goals to finish group A runners-up.
This is the first time Palestine, a middle-east country, took part in the prestigious tournament with tag top of ranking among the six participating teams. Palestine placed at 100th place in FIFA ranking while Tajikistan ranked at 120.
Before this tournament, the two sides met in the friendly matches. The first match was ended 1-1 draw held Hebron on October 6 in 2016 while the return match was also ended 3-3 draw held on November 5 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.