{"id":11156,"date":"2010-04-15T11:24:18","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T18:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/15\/marfavi-admits-al-ahli-made-it-tough\/"},"modified":"2010-04-15T11:24:18","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T18:24:18","slug":"marfavi-admits-al-ahli-made-it-tough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/15\/marfavi-admits-al-ahli-made-it-tough\/","title":{"rendered":"Marfavi admits Al Ahli made it tough"},"content":{"rendered":"
AFC – Tehran, Esteghlal coach Samad Marfavi stressed Al Ahli ensured his side\u2019s passage into the knockout stage of the AFC Champions League was not a comfortable one after the Iranians saw off their UAE rivals 2-1 at the Azadi Stadium. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mehdi Salehi opened the scoring after 24 minutes when he latched onto Farhad Majidi\u2019s delightful reverse pass and drilled a clinical finish past keeper Yasser Al Mosailem.<\/p>\n

Al Ahli levelled from the penalty spot through Victor Simoes in the 36th minute after Siavash Akbarpour bundled Sahib Al Abdullah over in the box. <\/p>\n

But Amirhossein Sadeghi secured the win just before the break when Al Ahli keeper Yasser Al Mosailem was caught out by Fabio Januario\u2019s corner allowing the defender to head into an unguarded net after he out-jumped a crowd of players at the back post.<\/p>\n

The result meant the Iranians claimed one of the two qualifying spots in Group A and Marfavi admitted they had been pushed hard by Al Ahli.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy for the win, all my players tried very hard on the field and the spectators kept supporting us throughout the whole game. I\u2019d really like to congratulate and thank each and every of our fans for their fantastic support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tough game, I shall confess.\u00a0 Al Ahli displayed good quality football. They played really well against us both in the first game and the return. <\/p>\n

\u201cComparing all four teams in Group A, I should say Al Ahli has the strongest attack and they were playing with a carefully-planned scheme. Fortunately, we succeeded at controlling the game as well their tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marfavi is now keen for his side to seal top spot when they travel to Abu Dhabi to face Al Jazira in their final game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started this round with great determination and full power and would like to end the group stage in the same fashion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very much motivated to beat Al Jazira too, so that we can conclude this round with a good result. <\/p>\n

\u201cI also really hope the other three Iranian teams can make it through to the last 16, it would be good for football in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we show a different level of football at the continental level, far better than in the league matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been improving game by game and played every match with a tailor-made plan,\u201d Marfavi concluded. <\/p>\n

Al Ahli coach Sergio Farias, meanwhile, pointed to a lengthy injury list as the main reason behind his side\u2019s defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason for our defeat today was that I wasn\u2019t able to use some of my regular players, mainly defenders,\u201d said the Brazilian.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to field some new players, who were making their debut appearance in the continental tournament. We made big mistakes in defence which was an obvious result of our big injury list.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – Tehran, Esteghlal coach Samad Marfavi stressed Al Ahli ensured his side\u2019s passage into…<\/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-11156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3007,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11156","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\/22615"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}