{"id":11745,"date":"2010-12-26T11:27:58","date_gmt":"2010-12-26T19:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/12\/26\/branko-may-lead-irans-national-team\/"},"modified":"2010-12-26T11:27:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-26T19:27:58","slug":"branko-may-lead-irans-national-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/12\/26\/branko-may-lead-irans-national-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Branko may lead Iran&#8217;s national team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span id=\"ctl00_body_spnDetail\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"divLead\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"brranko-pfdc2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/brranko-pfdc2.jpg\" height=\"352\" width=\"442\" \/>PTV &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Director of Iran&#8217;s  Football Federation (IFF) Ali Kaffashian says former head coach of  Iranian national football squad Branko Ivankovic is among the candidates  for the team&#8217;s top job.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Kaffashian said Saturday that Afshin Qotbi&#8217;s contract will expire at  the end of 2011 Asian Cup football competitions in Qatar and the IFF is  trying to appoint Qotbi&#8217;s successor before the continental showpiece,  which is slated for January 2011, IRNA reported.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Branko Ivankovic is one of the most successful foreign coaches that  have trained the Iranian national team. He has a good track record and  considered as an option,&#8221; Kaffashian said. <\/p>\n<p>Branko is a Croatian coach and is currently the manager of  Chinese Super League champion Shandong Luneng Taishan. He holds a PhD in  physical education. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Thursday, IFF&#8217;s Deputy Director Mehdi Taj said that Brazilian coach Zico is also among the candidates for the job.  <\/p>\n<p>Qotbi called up 27 players for the upcoming event, hoping to pilot the national team to glory in the finals. <\/p>\n<p>Iran is in Group D of the 2011 Asian Cup along with the United Arab Emirates, North Korea and the defending champion, Iraq. <\/p>\n<p>Iran has a current FIFA ranking of 66, behind Japan, South Korea and  Australia. The Iranian national team won the Asian Cup in 1968, 1972  and 1976, and hosted the continent&#8217;s biggest soccer event in 1968 and  1976. <\/p>\n<p>The Iranian team is currently in Qatar for a 10-day training camp  and will take on the host in a preparatory match on December 28. It will  also play another game with Qatar&#8217;s second team a day later. Qotbi&#8217;s  men are scheduled to face Angola in a preparatory match on January 2 as  well.  <\/p>\n<p>The AFC Asian Cup in Qatar runs from January 7 to 29. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PTV &#8211; TEHRAN, Director of Iran&#8217;s Football Federation (IFF) Ali Kaffashian says former head coach&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":5547,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}