{"id":11068,"date":"2010-03-10T22:02:04","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T06:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/10\/not-our-normal-level-rues-ghalenoei\/"},"modified":"2010-03-10T22:02:04","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T06:02:04","slug":"not-our-normal-level-rues-ghalenoei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/10\/not-our-normal-level-rues-ghalenoei\/","title":{"rendered":"Not our normal level rues Ghalenoei"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ghalenoei-sepahan11\"AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan coach Amir Ghalenoei insists the Iran Pro League table-toppers were lucky to escape with a point from Wednesday\u2019s goalless stalemate with UAE’s Al Ain in the AFC Champions League. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ghalenoei was delighted with performance in the 1-1 opening day draw with Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al Shabab at the end of last month, but was far from happy as Sepahan failed to take advantage of a crucial home game at Foolad Shahr Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Iranians were left to rue the absence of Iraq striker Emad Mohammed as a second consecutive draw saw Sepahan slip to third place in Group C after Al Shabab recorded a 3-1 victory over Pakhtakor in Uzbekistan. <\/p>\n

With Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al Shabab beating Uzbekistan\u2019s Pakhtakor 3-1, Sepahan dropped to third in Group C with Al Ain propping up the table after picking up a first point of the campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn both the first and second half we did not play to our usual level,\u201d said Ghalenoei. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe also suffered a lot with poor finishing and had my boys been more careful in the final third, we could have grabbed the three points.\u201d<\/p>\n

The draw was Sepahan\u2019s second in succession and makes three points from their next game against Pakhtakor vital if they are to maintain hopes of progressing to the next stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to play much better in the next games to make up for these two games,\u201d continued the former Esteghlal boss.<\/p>\n

Al Ain coach Toninho Cerezo was understandably happier with the result which keeps his side in contention as they sit just three points behind leaders Al Shabab.<\/p>\n

“In the first half we had more scoring chances, but in the second half we were kept more on the back foot after being pressed by Sepahan,\u201d said the Brazilian. <\/p>\n

“My defenders played very well and in fact the Sepahan players were caught by the offside trap on a number of occasions. This meant that they had to turn to throw ins and crosses rather than direct play, which we had a plan for.<\/p>\n

“I cannot predict who will qualify to the next round just yet but I believe the spectators at Foolad Shahr stadium today were the real winners of the match as they watched a good game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan coach Amir Ghalenoei insists the Iran Pro League table-toppers were lucky…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3138,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}