Kyrgyzstan vs Iran

The smallest ground at the tournament

Al Shabab Stadium holds 13 000, the smallest of the eight venues in use and under a fifth of the capacity at King Fahd. Kyrgyzstan against Iran is the kind of fixture that gets scheduled there. It is also the sort of setting in which a gap of thirteen tournaments narrows.

Kyrgyzstan have been to two Asian Cups and got out of the group at one of them, which is a better ratio than most of the field. What they have not yet done is take a result off a former champion. Iran are the only one in Group C, and this is the game.

Iran, for their part, rarely have trouble at this stage of a tournament. Their difficulties have come later and for half a century, but a slip here against the group outsider would change the shape of the final round considerably.

The two records

This is a third Asian Cup for Kyrgyzstan, whose best finish is round of 16 (2019), against a sixteenth for Iran, best winners (1968, 1972, 1976).