The head coach of the national football team of Turkmenistan Ante Mish in an interview with the Croatian newspaper "Sportske novosti" told about his work in the national team of our country. Recall that the Turkmen players finished 2019 in the first place of the qualifying campaign of the world Cup-2022 in group "H".
- I am glad that for the first time in history, the Turkmenistan national football team is in the first place in the group after the first round of world Cup qualification. We have become competitive, we have become a team that copes equally with Lebanon, North Korea and the Republic of Korea. And Shri Lanka is one step lower in the quality of the game.
These three teams I mentioned are really good. The Republic of Korea team is probably the best in Asia. The teams of North Korea and Lebanon may be superior to us in quality, but we managed to get closer to them. We defeated North Korea with a score of 3: 1, for the first time in history. Before that, the Turkmen team could not defeat the DPRK.
We lost to the Lebanese national team in Beirut — 1: 2, but we played our best game there. We had a lot of chances, really it was a draw. With this game, we will certainly fight for second place in the group and further qualification for the 2022 world Cup. It will be difficult for us to do this, because out of the eight groups come the first-place teams and the four second-place teams with the best performance. Then new groups will be created, of which only four teams will receive tickets from Asia to the 2022 world Cup in Qatar.
We have already secured a place in the continuation of qualification for the Asian Cup, which will be held in China in 2023. We have achieved this, but I have set a goal-to continue to fight in the selection of the world Cup-2022. I want to try to get into the third qualifying round. The first big goal is the 2022 world Cup in Qatar, and the objective goal is the 2023 Asian Cup.
