UAE striker Ali Mabkhout surpassed Lionel Messi and moved level with Brazil great Pele on 77 international goals with his strike in Tuesday's 1-1 Asian 2022 World Cup qualifier draw against Syria.
The Al Jazira striker opened the scoring in Amman on 12 minutes before Al Baher equalised on 64 minutes at the King Abdullah II Stadium.
Mabkhout's goal extended his national record and moved him to second among active players behind only Portugal superstar Cristiano Ronaldo on 111. Messi has 76 goals for Argentina.
The draw against Syria follows an identical result against Lebanon five days previously in Dubai. The UAE's Group A campaign, which offers only two direct berths at Qatar 2022 and possibly a backdoor third, teeters already.
Bert van Marwijk's side next face Iraq and Iran in October.
List of top 10 international scorers
1.) Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) - 111
2). Ali Daei (Iran) - 109
3). Mokhtar Dahari (Malaysia) - 89
4). Ferenc Puskas (Hungary) - 84
5). Godfrey Chitalu (Zambia) - 79
6). Hussein Saeed (Iraq) - 78
7). Pele (Brazil) - 77
= Ali Mabkhout (UAE) - 77
9). Lionel Messi (Argentina) - 76
10). Kunishige Kamamoto (Japan) - 75
= Sunil Chhetri (India) - 75
= Bashar Abdullah (Kuwait) - 75
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
PAKISTAN SQUAD
Abid Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan Masood, Azhar Ali (test captain), Babar Azam (T20 captain), Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam, Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Imran Khan, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hasnain, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari, Wahab Riaz, Imad Wasim, Kashif Bhatti, Shadab Khan and Yasir Shah.
