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Syria U21: World Cup Here We Come!

Written by scrambledeggs-SAS

It’s been over 13 years since the last post was published on Syria HT-Press, and what better moment to publish than after Syria U21’s thrilling, unlikely qualification for the first time in country history to the world cup following its 3rd place finish in the Asian Continental Cup 36.

Hattrick Syria: as of 02/09/2023, a nation composed of just 80 users, making it the second smallest nation in terms of users in the entire community, with just one more user than Asian Cup rival Jordan.

My name is Scrambled Eggs and I’ve been the head coach of Syria U21 for the last two terms, since October 2022. My team and I inherited a U21 Syria which was almost completely abandoned, and because of that we’ve been doing our best to improve inch by inch, transforming this country from a perennial punching bag into a team to watch out for.

And that’s exactly what we’ve managed to do, implementing a structured scouting and strategic system which has paid dividends. Allow me to introduce my team:

Assistant Manager and Strategist: Alemir (1810414)
Technical Analyst: Stoeptegel69 (13454944)
Scouts:
Chump (2302466)
Ritz_IV (7053530)
U17 Scout:
Copyrofire (13712546)

But enough about us, let’s talk about the team that grinded out every single one of their 13 points to narrowly score qualification into the next World Cup, shall we?

We were put in a rather difficult group, as two of the teams are some of the biggest nations in all of Asia! That’s right, Iran and Oceania, the two teams that would go on to finish 1st and 2nd, respectively, in our group, are the 2nd and 3rd largest nations in terms of total users to participate in this tournament. We were in over our heads from the beginning! Beyond these two teams, rounding out the group were Indonesia (408 users), Maldives (95 users) and Jordan (79 users).

The first match of the Asian Continental Cup was on July 14th 2023 against one of the strongest teams in all of Asia: Oceania. Flaunting 1205 users, Oceania had a very disappointing Asian Cup 35, finishing with just 8 points and 5th place in their group. However, they finished 4th place in all of the Nations Cup (out of a total of 48 teams), so it was obvious that they would start the tournament strong.

Or maybe not.

Syria managed a miraculous victory on the road against Oceania, with an unlikely 4-2 win in difficult conditions down under (30333989). We witnessed the first goal by Sharif Afteem (468629157), who went on to become the regular season Golden Boot winning, scoring 8 goals and sitting in first place as tournament top scorer after the first 10 games (all of group play) were played. 3 points on the road and Syria in first place alone after the first match, who would have thought!

But it didn’t last long. We flew back to Syria for a home match against Indonesia and, to be honest, we simply underestimated them. (30334012) Indonesia both outsmarted us and our players just didn’t come to play: we suffered a red card in the 28th minute as well as a key injury 30 minutes later. They were too good for us and handed us a 1-3 loss. Only positive note? Afteem scores again, netting 2 goals in 2 games.

Morale in the locker room was low, especially considering that the next match was against group favorite Iran, but we knew nothing was a guarantee.

In Tehran, the team absolutely eked out a draw in a match where Iran was dominant. Syria managed to win midfield on the road, and fortunately they held off Iran’s insistent attacks. The unsung hero both in this game and in the entire tournament was keeper Abou Saada (465876519) who managed to stop all but 1 of Iran’s attacks despite little help from his frontline defenders.

3 matches, 4 points. A good pace so far, but we are hoping to improve upon that for the future. Next up, we went back to Damascus to host Maldives and their seemingly defensive team. However, once again our opponent had a few tricks up their sleeve and surprised us with a massive midfield! Fortunately for us, our master Sharif Afteem scored 2 goals, equaling 4 in 4 games, and we managed to walk away with a draw.

At this moment, with 5 points in 4 matches, Syria was on the outside looking in:

Standings after 4 matches:
Iran: 8 points
Maldives: 7 points
Oceania: 6 points
Indonesia: 6 points
Syria: 5 points
Jordan: 1 point

It was anyone’s tournament at this point, but it was our chance to go on the road and play Jordan in Amman, an opportunity to get a win and climb up the ratings. Much to our dismay, this was the moment that our luck had run out. Despite a strong attack, dominant defense, only a small disadvantage at midfield and even a 1-0 advantage until the 74th minute, Jordan never game up and managed to net 2 goals in the final moments to surpass Syria.

The team, and the entire staff, was left absolutely devastated after such a match, but we had little time to mourn; we were only halfway done the tournament and the return leg of matches was just around the corner.

With the help of Afteem’s 5th goal, we managed a 1-1 draw against Oceania, guaranteeing 4 points against one of the group’s favorites. Following that, we pulled off a miraculous 0-3 victory against Indonesia, this time with no red cards and, you guessed it, 2 goals by Afteem, meaning 7 goals in just 7 games! It’s hard to say where we would have been at this point had we not had such a dominant striker.

Standings after 7 matches:
Iran: 12 points
Maldives: 12 points
Oceania: 11 points
Syria: 9 points
Indonesia: 8 points
Jordan: 4 points

The coveted third place, meaning qualification to the world cup, is within our reach at this point, but round 8 was against mighty Iran. Again, keeper Abou Saada came out strong in defense during our 3-5-2, but even more impressive was our midfield which held the ball for 61% of the game and limited Iran to 3 attacks. As our chief strategist Stoeptegel69 says, "A good midfield is a good defense," and we couldn't agree more after a match like this. The 0-0 draw was fitting.

At this point, you all know how round 9 is going to go. That’s right: a 1-0 victory at the hands of our star scoring Afteem, scoring his 8th and final goal of the tournament but one that held more value than just any goal. It was worth 3 points, on the road, against our main competitor for that third spot in the group: Maldives.

Standings after 9 matches:

Iran: 16 points
Oceania: 14 points
Syria: 13 points
Maldives: 12 points
Indonesia: 11 points
Jordan: 7 points

Looking at the standings above, anything could happen going into the last day. Syria was fortunate enough to play, at home, the last place Jordan team, which had been struggling quite a lot entering this final match. With a victory and depending how the other results panned out, Syria could even potentially finish in first place! While this was an outside chance, it was nonetheless an impressive feat just to be in such a position given all the factors leading up to this tournament and how the standings looked even just 2 or 3 matches ago.

As luck would have it, Syria’s dominant squad on the last match of the season simply wasn’t enough, and Jordan took us down 1-2 in a surprise defeat. So what does this mean? Well, let’s take a step back:

Maldives, just 1 point behind us, needs a victory to surpass us as their goal difference was worse and a draw would not get them ahead. Fortunately for us, they were playing on the road against a hungry Oceania team, who dominated them 5-3. Maldives: eliminated.

The only other team that could overtake us? Indonesia with a win at home against Iran. Certainly a tall order, but at this point anything can happen!

The match went down to the wire, 0-0 until the last minutes. If it keeps up like this, Syria is going to the world cup! Those final minutes seemed to never end, but we were helped out quite a lot by Iran’s 93-95-94 defensive, and as the 3 whistles blew, Syria’s destiny was confirmed: qualification into the World Cup for the first time in the history of the U21 program. Under other coaches, Syria had tried to qualify on 25 separate occasions dating back to 2008 and had never once successfully done it.

But some say records were meant to be broken, and we couldn’t be happier to be breaking a record that in Syria was becoming a sad constant for the fanbase.

To conclude this story of perseverance and tenacity, I’d like to reach out to the other 79 users (plus myself) that call Syria home to one of their hattrick teams. In such a small country everyone can play a part. Whether that is placing more emphasis on your youth academy, contacting scouts when you have a great 17 year-old prospect, or training yourself some of your young talents, just know that you all have the opportunity to help make a difference, and know as well that our qualification to the world cup is dedicated to all of you first and foremost.

Let’s keep up the great work of being a small but tight-knit community because together we are stronger! Be sure to follow the Syria U21 team as we take on the giants from Europe, the Americas, Africa and the rest of the world at a global stage. Come on Syria!