{"id":11769,"date":"2011-01-02T10:16:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T18:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/02\/in-group-d-bora-predicts-iraq-and-dprk-or-iran\/"},"modified":"2011-01-02T10:16:58","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T18:16:58","slug":"in-group-d-bora-predicts-iraq-and-dprk-or-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/02\/in-group-d-bora-predicts-iraq-and-dprk-or-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"In Group D, Bora predicts Iraq and DPRK or Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"Bora Miluntinovic\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sportsfeatures.com\/PressPoint\/images\/46493-olympic-image1.jpg\" height=\"353\" width=\"336\" \/>AFC &#8211; DOHA, <strong>In the final instalment of his predictions for the finals of the AFC  Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122, Bora Milutinovic looks at Group D, which the Serb  coach believes will be one of the most difficult of the competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Group D sees defending champions Iraq \u2013 who Milutinovic coached at  the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup \u2013 joined by three-time Asian champions  Iran, DPR Korea, who qualified for the finals of the FIFA World Cup in  South Africa, and an improving United Arab Emirates side that features  many of the best up-and-coming young players in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGroup D is a very tight group. I think Iraq will be there, I watched  them earlier and I was very pleased with the way they played.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have an excellent attitude. I know this team very well, I was  so happy to work with them at the FIFA Confederations Cup (in 2009). If  there is one team I like, it is Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are good people and my memories of working with them at the  Confederations Cup are like a souvenir, it was a great experience. They  are very good guys, a good team and the coach (Wolfgang Sidka) now has  them playing good football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfshin Ghotbi is a very good friend and Iran have made some very  good results, they beat Korea Republic and they beat China earlier in  the year. They have quality but I don\u2019t know if they have come with the  best players. They have a tough job to do because DPR Korea will make  things very tough and so will the United Arab Emirates. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you watch DPR Korea at the World Cup, you have two impressions.  The first part of the tournament, in the way that they play against  Brazil, it showed what they can do when they work hard but the problem  is they don\u2019t have so much experience. For me, it was a nice surprise to  see them qualify for the AFC Asian Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Emirates have a very good coach in Srecko Katanec but I don\u2019t  think they are favourites to go through even though they have some good  young players. You never know, but I think it will be Iraq and Iran or  possibly the North Koreans. It\u2019s a very difficult group.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bora\u2019s prediction: Iraq and either Iran or DPR Korea to qualify for the quarterfinals<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; DOHA, In the final instalment of his predictions for the finals of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3016,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11769","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=11769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}