Afghanistan will face Paraguay tonight, Wednesday September 25, in their Round of 16 match in this year’s Futsal World Cup. 

This is Afghanistan’s debut in the tournament while Paraguay is a seven-time participant. 

Ranked 13th in the world, Paraguay was the top team in Group A.

Afghanistan is ranked by FIFA as 30th in the world. 

The match will take place at the Homa Arena stadium in Tashkent and kicks off at 7.30pm. 

Afghanistan played Paraguay in a friendly in Tashkent ahead of the start of the World Cup. They tied 2-2. 

Speaking ahead of the match, Afghanistan winger Farzad Mahmoodi said: “Afghanistan’s presence in the top 16 teams of the 2024 World Cup is a great honor for the people of Afghanistan. 

“We had a friendly match against Paraguay before the start of the World Cup, which ended in a 2-2 draw. We hope that tonight will be our night. 

“With the support of our fans in Huma Arena, we will go into the game to win.”

Paraguay’s coach Carlos Chilavert meanwhile pointed out that the team knows Afghanistan are a force to be reckoned with. 

“We know Afghanistan are very tough opponents. When we arrived here, we played a friendly against them and it was really even, really tough. 

“They are a very hard-working team, with very good technical players. We know what we’re up against. We will have to be at our best if we want to have a chance of going through.”

Fans across Afghanistan can tune in to watch all the action on Ariana Television tonight. ATN is the official broadcaster of the tournament and is broadcasting matches live. 

Afghanistan’s national cricket team returned to Kabul on Tuesday morning after sealing a historic ODI series win against South Africa.

Afghanistan sealed the series 2-1, making it the first time in history the team has not only secured a series win against South Africa - in any format - but it was also their first-ever series win over a top five ICC-ranked side. 

The team claimed matches one and two in convincing fashion to take the Sharjah series bragging rights, winning the matches by six wickets (and with 144 balls to spare) and 177 runs respectively, bowling out the Proteas for scores of 106 and 134. 

South Africa would go on to claim the third match in consolation, chasing down a target of just 170.

The Afghans are ninth on the ICC Men's ODI Team Rankings, with a rating of 82, fractionally behind Bangladesh (86).

Afghanistan meet South Africa again in their Champions Trophy group, alongside Australia and England from mid-February.

France is at the center of controversy after coaches of various national teams accused the French of match-fixing following a heavy defeat against Iran in a group stage match at the World Cup in Uzbekistan. 

France went down 4-1 to Iran in their match last week. 

A post on X by Ricardo Iñiguez, the head coach of Libya, who were eliminated from the competition at the group stage, said the match had been a “disgrace” for the sport.

“Libya is going to file an official complaint in relation to this match for ‘match fixing’, it is a disgrace for our sport,” Iñiguez wrote, before going on to share criticism from other figures within the sport.

The Guardian reported that FIFA is looking into claims of “match manipulation” and breaches of “the spirit of the game”, rather than match fixing.

Social media posts by fans during the match also highlighted the lackluster performance by France. 

In another X post, the Thailand coach, Miguel Rodrigo, said his team were waiting to take on the French “with open arms”, but also it was a “a world disgrace” and that they had “dishonoured my sport”.

Video footage shared by Rodrigo appears to show French goalkeeper Thibaut Garros moving away from the ball in the buildup to Iran’s opening goal. The French went on to record only six shots on goal over the course of the entire match, scoring a consolation after Iran had eased to a 4-0 lead.

In a statement, Fifa said it was “aware of complaints filed by participating teams at the Futsal World Cup regarding the Group F match between France and Iran” but that “no further comment will be made while this process is ongoing”.