Iranian striker Arash Borhani apologized for the bizarre way of the goal he scored against China after their quarter-final clash in the soccer tournament at the Doha Asian Games on Saturday.
Iran beat China 10-9 through penalty shoot-out on Saturday. Borhani got an inch-perfect through pass from playmaker Adel Kolahkaj in the 39th minute and used a rare style to score.
The 23-year-old striker faked a shot to feign down China's goalkeeper Wang Dalei and dribbled the ball slowly to the empty net, but stopped at the goal line with one foot stepping on the ball. Then he turned around to call his teammates to come to celebrate and dribbled home.
"I'm sorry for that. The coach criticized me at the half break and I realized it's a kind of disrespect to our competitors. It's an impolite goal. I apologize to the Chinese team," said Borhani after the match.
Iran's Brazilian head coach Rodrigues Simoes disagreed with his player's way of the goal, he said: "I told Borhani in the changing room at the interval that there are two opinions about the goal."
"First it's a nice goal and that's good. The second point is that the goal is bad because it showed disgrace to the other team. I'm one hundred percent agree that it was not fair play
Rodrigues added that he criticized the forward at the break and felt sorry for the Chinese team on behalf on the Iranian team and the Brazilian coaching staff.
"But I'm sure he was not on intention."
Iran will meet hosts Qatar in the semi-final on Tuesday.