{"id":12179,"date":"2011-05-25T12:09:57","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T19:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/25\/ghalenoei-grateful-for-determined-display\/"},"modified":"2011-05-25T12:09:57","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T19:09:57","slug":"ghalenoei-grateful-for-determined-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/25\/ghalenoei-grateful-for-determined-display\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghalenoei grateful for determined display"},"content":{"rendered":"
AFC – Esfahan, Sepahan boss Amir Ghalenoei thanked his players for a determined display after a 3-1 victory over Bunyodkor at the Foolad Shahr saw the Iranians reach the quarter-finals of the 2011 AFC Champions League. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Having wrapped up the domestic title, Ghalenoei has now set his sights on Asian glory and Sepahan outplayed their visitors despite being reduced to 10 men early in the second-half when Ibrahima Toure was needlessly sent-off for striking Anvarjon Soliev in the wall before a free-kick.<\/p>\n

By then the hosts were two goals to the good thanks to Fabio Januario\u2019s swerving 30-yard strike and Toure\u2019s exquisite finish.<\/p>\n

Bunyodkor pulled a goal back through Slavoljub Djordjevic\u2019s header before he gave away a penalty that Hadi Aghily converted to send Sepahan through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really happy with their performance, I would like to thank them all,\u201d said Ghalenoei.<\/p>\n

\u201cBunyodkor are one of the best in Asia. They are physically potent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put enough pressure on Bunyodkor\u2019s midfield which made them lose their tactical strength. Most of my players are pretty exhausted with recent games in a very compact schedule but fortunately they proved they can change the impossible to possible. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe fired good shots in the game today. Bunyodkor didn\u2019t create many chances to score but we did.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ghalenoei also hopes fellow Iranian side Zob Ahan can now follow them into the last eight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish from the bottom of my heart that the final game of this year will be an all-Iranian one between Sepahan and Zob Ahan,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we were unlucky in the Champions League but this year we are here to make up for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bunyodkor boss Mirjalal Kasimov conceded his team had been outplayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are really powerful and I would like to congratulate them for the win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opening goal and the second for Sepahan ruined everything and I believe officials of the tournament should appoint better referees for knockout matches.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cI believe the referee shouldn\u2019t have given a penalty to Sepahan. He made a mistake with that but there\u2019s nothing we can do about it now. After Ibrahima Toure was sent off we had better conditions to play but still they had another very good 10 players.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did our best against Sepahan. I am 90 per cent satisfied with my team\u2019s performance and the players. However, our opponents were very strong and it wasn\u2019t easy to play against them at all. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey won the game, went through to the next round and I hope they can keep playing like that to reach the final.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – Esfahan, Sepahan boss Amir Ghalenoei thanked his players for a determined display after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22615,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2504,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12179","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\/22615"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}