“I am very proud of our performance. We worked really hard, but more importantly, we also had fun,” said the number 10, who was named the player of the match.

“Individually, I had a good game, but I believe I was able to perform at that level because of the compact play demonstrated by the team as a whole."

“We learned many lessons in this competition, especially from playing against giants of the game such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Arab Emirates. We can only do better from here, and I hope that will be reflected in the future.”

Afghanistan’s Omid Houmani, whose team exited the competition without a win, credited Indonesia’s performance and vowed to come back stronger in future editions.

“We tried to follow the coach’s instructions to the best of our abilities, but Indonesia played really well and made things very difficult for us. In some situations, we were also quite unlucky,” said Houmani.

“Once we return to Afghanistan, we will train harder, perform better, and inspire the next generation of Afghan players.”