Afghanistan's beach football team beat Qatar 7-3 Tuesday night in its first of three matches to qualify for a place in the 2013 FIFA Beach Football World Cup.
The Afghan team will next face Oman, and if successful, then Australia as part of the first round of matches for the Asian teams.
Team captain and striker Samiullah Mohammadi secured five goals for the team in last night's match. He seemed surprised at Afghanistan's convincing victory.
"We didn't believe that Afghanistan was stronger than Qatar," he said. "In the upcoming days we will face other Asian beach football teams which will be very tough. On Wednesday we will face to Oman and we hope to do a great job."
The French and Brazilian ambassadors to Qatar meet the Afghan national beach football team on Wednesday, according to Afghan officials.
The team's starting lineup was Kavosh, Jameel Naseeri, Ghulam Hazrat Baran, Mahmoud Azad, and Samiullah Mohammadi.
Afghanistan is hoping to qualify for one of three places up for grabs among 16 Asian teams.
Those three teams will then join 13 other teams from around the world in French Polynesia's Tahiti for the FIFA Beach Football World Cup which is held every two years.
Russia won the cup in 2011, with Brazil, Portugal and El Salvador securing second, third and fourth respectively.