The 23-year-old, who has been utilised as a central defender by coach Vadim Abramov in Qatar, has been a constant fixture at Uzbekistan’s pre-match press conferences at the tournament instead of skipper Server Djeparov and veterans Maksim Shatskikh, Timur Kapadze and Ignatiy Nesterov.

Apparently, the reason for Ahmedov being selected to appear before the media was because it was felt that he would bring good luck to the team. That certainly proved to be the case in Uzbekistan’s opening match when he unleashed a 35-metre screamer to break the deadlock in a 2-0 win over hosts Qatar.

The Pakhtakor player has attended every press conference since then and his luck has continued to rub off on the Uzbeks, who were unbeaten on their run to the semi-finals.

Unsurprisingly, Ahmedov has no intention of skipping any of his media duties if his side do get past Australia at the Khalifa Stadium on Tuesday and reach the final.

“I’ll keep coming to press conferences, after the next game, before the final and even after the final if it helps,” said the Uzbek, smiling, after addressing the media in Monday’s press conference in Doha.

With two goals and some sterling performances in Qatar, Ahmedov has emerged as one of the stars of the tournament and his performances have been noted by fans on a major football website, who voted for him as the most impressive player at the tournament on a recent poll, ahead of Korea Republic’s Koo Ja-cheol, Australia’s Tim Cahill and Japan’s Shinji Okazaki.

“It is additional motivation for me to play well,” continued Ahmedov.

“I did not know anything about it but after learning about the poll results I’m very happy to be noticed as one of the big players here.”

“I think that I have been developing and progressing as a player during this tournament and I’m very satisfied with my game,” he added.