Intercontinental Cup 2023: Valiant Mongolia holds Lebanon to goalless draw

A match of opposites, between the highest-ranked (Lebanon #99) and lowest-ranked (Mongolia #183) sides was expected to be a goal-fest but the Blue Wolves stuck as a pack.

Lebanon’s captain Maatouk Hassan controls the ball before his strike against Mongolia in the Hero Intercontinental Cup 2023 at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.

A series of missed chances by striker Karim Darwich continued to haunt Lebanon as it was held to a frustrating goalless draw by Mongolia in its second match of the Intercontinental Cup at the Kalinga Stadium here on Monday.

A match of opposites, between the highest-ranked (Lebanon #99) and lowest-ranked (Mongolia #183) sides was expected to be a goal-fest but the Blue Wolves stuck as a pack, keeping Lebanon for a tense 90 minutes plus added time.

Starting with a completely new line-up, except for the goalkeeper, Mongolia stuck to its five-man defence, freezing the wing-attacks of Aleksandar Ilićić’s side.

But a defensive error almost gave away a goal to the Cedars in the 14th minute, starting with an error in judgement by Mongolia’s goalkeeper Enkhtaivan Munkh-Erdene. 

Lebanon right-back Hussein Zein’s through ball for Zein Farran had overrun to reach Erdenechimeg Unur-Erdene on the right flank, whose pass for Enkhtaivan was intercepted by Darwich (Lebanon’s No.9).

Darwich, who had missed multiple chances in the first game (against Vanuatu), delayed his shot and his final strike was cleared on the goal-line by Bat-Erdene Uuganbat (No.4).

At the brink of half-time, Maatouk overlapped with Hassan Saad on the left flank, beat his marker and crossed for Darwich, who missed it as Mongolian defender Batbaatar Amgalanbat (No.2) tossed it just over his net, narrowly escaping the blasphemy of conceding an own goal.

After the restart, the contest continued to be the same – one between assault rifles against a rock wall, punching holes but not really changing anything substantially.

Lebanon, however, found a gap in its opposition’s defence in the 53rd minute when Mataouk made a cheeky run into the box, turned and delivered a lobbed ball for Darwich, whose header flew off-target and he was soon replaced by Khalil Bader.

Despite optimistic runs from the midfield, the two misses by Darwich - the header and the 14th-minute goal-line clearance, along with Mongolia’s valiant consistency with defence - saw the match end with each team returning with a point.

On Matchday 3, three days later, Lebanon will play India while Mongolia will lock horns with Vanuatu. The top two teams will then play the final on June 18.

MATCH RESULT

Mongolia 0 drew with Lebanon 0