Mahdi Torabi was brought on in extra time as Ghalehnoy plotted for the shootout early on, with two other substitutes – Omid Ebrahimi and Karim Ansafarid – three of the five players who scored in the shootout as Iran emerged 5-3 winners after the match ended 1-1 after 120 minutes.
Having dominated for much of the match, a change in tactics was necessary after Mehdi Taremi was shown a red card late in the second half after picking up two bookings.
“We made a substitution before the match went into penalties,” said Ghalehnoy. “We put Torabi in, who is a good penalty kicker.
“We know who our best kickers are and also we know that (Alireza) Beiranvand can help us because we trust him between the sticks.”
“I think we could have scored five goals against Syria (earlier in the game), we had so many opportunities. I’m not really happy with the performance of 2-3 players but I’m very happy with the discipline we showed after we went one man down.
“Before we went down to 10 men, I would consider our performance to be one of the best we have produced in the competition.”
Custodian Ahmad Madanieh produced a string of saves in the first half before eventually conceding to a Taremi penalty late in the half but Syrian showed good response after the break, finding the equaliser through a penalty of their own with Omar Khrbin netting from the spot.
Beiranvand saved Fahd Youssef’s attempt in the shootout, with Iran converting all five but Syria head coach Hector Cuper was very proud of his men, with the West Asian side reaching the knockout stage of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time.
“I’m very satisfied with the players’ performance and sacrifice,” said the Argentine. “Unhappy with the result because we wanted to go through but I couldn’t ask more from them.
“We wanted to exploit them after the red card but the Iranian team closed down the spaces very well. Even with one man less, they managed their defence well and are a tough team to overcome. We tried all avenues but they managed to stop us.
“Overall, I’m satisfied with our performance in the whole tournament, we managed to show our quality against a lot of strong teams.”
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