By Mark Baber
March 30 – The Azadi stadium in Tehran was packed with 80,000 Afghans on Sunday evening as their under-23 team lost 6-0 to the Iranian Under-23 team, ending their hopes of progressing in the AFC Under-23 Championship and of winning a place in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Iran’s win means they top Group C heading in to Tuesday’s game against Saudi Arabia which will decide which of the Asian rivals gains an automatic booth for the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship finals in Qatar this coming January.
Prior to the game Afghan hopes had been raised after their side defeated Nepal 2-0 and held the Saudis to a draw and despite being on the losing side the bulk of their supporters remained in a celebratory mood, waving the Afghan national flag and staying to the end of the game.
Around 3,000 Iranian supporters turned out to support their team who, with a 100% record so far, will be strong favourites to proceed to the AFC Championship finals which will serve to decide the three teams from Asia who will be travelling to Rio for the Olympics.
According to the UNHCR there were 950,000 registered Afghan citizens living in Iran in 2014, whilst over 3,000,000 are believed to be living in the country in total (with a similar number having fled their war-torn homeland to Pakistan).
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