{"id":15422,"date":"2013-06-19T08:30:43","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T15:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=15422"},"modified":"2013-06-19T11:43:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T18:43:02","slug":"iranian-team-returns-to-heroes-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2013\/06\/19\/iranian-team-returns-to-heroes-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian team returns to heroes&#8217; welcome [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Iranian fans greeted their national football team on Wednesday, one day after they secured a place in the 2014 World Cup, and watched the players\u2019 victory parade at Tehran\u2019s Azadi Stadium.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was a continuation of the jubilant celebrations across the country that began on Tuesday, shortly after Iran defeated South Korea in a match in Group A of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Iran beat South Korea 1-0 at the Munsu Football Stadium in Ulsan thanks to Reza Ghoochannejhad\u2019s winning goal.<\/p>\n<p>In the 59th minute, Ghoochannejhad scored from a counter attack.<\/p>\n<p>In other games on Tuesday, Uzbekistan defeated Qatar 5-1 in Tashkent on Tuesday, clinching third place in Group A and a spot in the Asia playoff against Jordan, which defeated Oman 1-0 in Amman to wrap up third place in Group B.<\/p>\n<p>Iran finished on top of Group A of the Asian qualifiers with 16 points. South Korea also earned a berth in the World Cup by finishing in second place in Group A with 14 points, edging past Uzbekistan, which also had 14 points, on goal difference.<\/p>\n<p>In Group B, Japan, with 17 points, and Australia, with 13 points, also qualified for the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>The top two teams in Group A and Group B of Asia qualify for the World Cup directly, while the third-place teams go to a playoff, with the winner facing off against the fifth-place team of South America for a berth in the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>This is the fourth time the Iranian football team has qualified for the World Cup. Iran also went to the World Cup in 1978, 1998, and 2006.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kNboU0jk8Ko\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kNboU0jk8Ko<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, Iranian fans greeted their national football team on Wednesday, one day&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":5316,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422","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=15422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}