Oman will wrap up their World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign on Tuesday at Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex with a chance to earn their second-ever victory against China.
Al-Ahmar edged Vietnam 1-0 last week, while a late second-half penalty gave the Chinese a 1-1 draw versus Saudi Arabia.
Match preview
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Playing in the third round of qualifying for the first time since the 2014 campaign, Oman held their own against some of the top teams in Asia, but unfortunately, it will not be enough to see them make it to Qatar.
After stunning Japan 1-0 in their opening fixture of this qualification stage, there was a belief that the two-time Arabian Gulf Cup winners might be able to surprise some of the giant footballing nations in this region.
Branko Ivankovic took over this team intending to get them into the World Cup for the first time, and although that will not happen this year, that kind of positive mentality seems to have trickled down to his players, who have fought fearlessly throughout this campaign.
Having to face Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia, among others, at this stage of the competition, not much was expected from this squad.
Still, they have made those sides work hard to beat them, losing twice to the Saudis and once to the Samurai Blue by a single goal.
What is even more commendable about these narrow defeats is that they have played more aggressively than expected, always employing two strikers and never being dominated by teams who may be superior to them on paper.
In their previous match against China, set pieces proved to be their undoing as they were caught flat-footed on a couple of occasions in the opening half, though they fought their way back from a goal behind to claim a 1-1 draw.
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China came into this stage of qualifying on the back of five consecutive victories in all competitions and with it an expectation that they might be a dark horse team, with the potential to finish in a top-three position in Group B.
Unfortunately for Li Xiaopeng and his side, they began this qualifying phase on a sour note, losing 3-0 to Australia, and they have struggled to find consistency since then, putting in a mixture of good and poor performances.
Last week was far from their most clinical showing, yet they managed to fight back and draw a strong side in Saudi Arabia, scoring on their lone effort on target.
Dragon's Team have failed to register a shot on goal three times in this qualification stage, and they are struggling to provide much quality service to their strikers.
They only conceded three goals in the second round of qualifying, but their backline have had issues containing some of the more clinical finishers in this current group stage, conceding 17 goals after nine matches, which is second only to Vietnam.
Since the dream of a second World Cup appearance was shattered with a surprising defeat to the Golden Star Warriors last month (3-1), this squad have faced some intense public criticism, as they will have to wait another four years to try to qualify for the finals once again.
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Team News
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Khalid Al-Hajri scored his first goal of qualification for Oman against Vietnam, his 13th for the national team, while Abdullah Fawaz will try to replicate his performance from their previous home fixture when he notched a brace in a 2-2 draw against the Socceroos, the first two strikes of his international career.
Amjad Al-Harthi scored his first international goal in their last outing against China, while Issam Al-Sabhi has tallied twice for this team in qualifying.
Ibrahim Al-Mukhaini stopped all three of the shots that he faced versus the Golden Star Warriors to collect a clean sheet, replacing Faiz Al-Rushaidi in goal in what was his first appearance for the senior side.
China will have to soldier on without their top goalscorer in qualifying Wu Lei, who had 12 goals in this entire qualification cycle, while Zhu Chenjie picked up his first international goal last week, scoring from the penalty spot to earn his side a point against Saudi Arabia.
Gao Zhunyi collected up his 10th international cap for China in their previous qualifier, while Zhang Linpeng needs nine more appearances to reach 100 for the national team.
There were many new faces to the Chinese starting 11 on Thursday with Zhunyi, Linpeng, Zheng Zheng, Liu Yang, Hao Junmin, Liao Lisheng, Liu Binbin and Zhang Yuning all featuring in the opening lineup.
Oman possible starting lineup:
Al-Mukhaini; Durbin, Al-Habsi, Al-Busaidi, Al-Gheilani; Al-Saadi; Al-Khaldi, Al-Kaabi, Fawaz; Al-Hajri, Al-Muqbali
China possible starting lineup:
Yan; Gao, Yu, Zhu, Tong, Y. Liu; Hao, Xu, B. Liu; Tan, Y. Zhang
We say: Oman 2-0 China
Oman have only beaten China once in their history, but they have shown much more consistency in qualifying than their opponents, and their scoring depth should be enough to find a way past Dragon's Team, who have not been sharp defensively.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a China win with a probability of 42.59%. A win for Oman had a probability of 31.47% and a draw had a probability of 25.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a China win was 0-1 with a probability of 10.27%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (8.88%) and 0-2 (7.4%). The likeliest Oman win was 1-0 (8.57%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.33%). The actual scoreline of 2-0 was predicted with a 5.1% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted a 2-0 win for Oman in this match.
