{"id":11116,"date":"2010-03-31T19:49:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T02:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/31\/al-gharafa-1-1-esteghlal\/"},"modified":"2010-03-31T19:49:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T02:49:22","slug":"al-gharafa-1-1-esteghlal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/31\/al-gharafa-1-1-esteghlal\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Gharafa 1-1 Esteghlal [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Esteghlal_Logo_New\"AFC – DOHA, Iran\u2019s Esteghlal held onto the lead at the top of the tightly congested Group A table after rallying to earn a 1-1 draw with Al Gharafa in the AFC Champions League on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Iraq striker Younis Mahmoud had opened the scoring at Al Gharafa Stadium in first-half stoppage time as the home side sought revenge for last week\u2019s 3-0 defeat in Tehran.<\/p>\n

But Mehdi Seyed Salehi struck for the visitors two minutes before the hour mark as Esteghlal remained a point clear of Al Gharafa with two games remaining with Al Ahli just a further point off the pace after beating Al Jazira 2-0.<\/p>\n

After just two minutes Mahmoud tired his luck from distance and was denied by Esteghlal goalkeeper Mohammad Mohammadi.<\/p>\n

The visitors had the ball in the Al Gharafa net after 12 minutes after midfielder Fabio Januario broke through home side\u2019s defence, but the strike was ruled out for offside.<\/p>\n

Al Gharafa midfielder Juninho, who missed last week\u2019s defeat due to suspension, drifted a free-kick agonisingly past the Esteghlal upright two minutes later as the early chances continued to flow. <\/p>\n

As the pace of the contest slowed as the half progressed, Mahmoud was denied by Mohammadi.<\/p>\n

A minute before half-time Januario blazed an effort over the head of Al Gharafa goalkeeper Qasem Burhan and the crossbar.<\/p>\n

But in stoppage time Mohammadi failed to hold Araujo\u2019s shot and Mahmoud took full advantage to head home from close range to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n

Al Gharafa made a bright start to the second half but failed to convert a string of chances into a second goal.<\/p>\n

And two minutes before the hour mark as Salehi rose above the Al Gharafa defence to head a chipped cross from midfielder Khosro Heydari past Burhan.<\/p>\n

Burhan was called into action to stop the visitors completing the comeback five minutes after the hour mark as the Al Gharafa goalkeeper turned away a speculative strike from Esteghlal captain Farhad Majidi.<\/p>\n

Mohammadi was called into action to deny Mahmoud soon after, but after a flourish of goalmouth activity, both side\u2019s appeared to settle for a point in the closing stages.<\/p><\/div>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lrLJuk3jM3o<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – DOHA, Iran\u2019s Esteghlal held onto the lead at the top of the tightly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":5866,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11116","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=11116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}