{"id":11190,"date":"2010-04-25T23:01:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T06:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/25\/iran-always-strong-in-afc-asian-cup\/"},"modified":"2010-04-25T23:01:48","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T06:01:48","slug":"iran-always-strong-in-afc-asian-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/25\/iran-always-strong-in-afc-asian-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Iran always strong in AFC Asian Cup&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: left;\">PTV &#8211; DOHA, <strong>Iraq&#8217;s soccer manager Nadhim Shakir has said the Iranian national  soccer squad <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"nadhim-shakir\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/nadhim-shakir.jpg\" height=\"216\" width=\"320\" \/>has always been a dangerous team in the AFC Asian Cup.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe  are the defending champions and everyone will be keen to dethrone us.  But we hope to retain the title. I think Group D is the toughest of all  four,\u201d Shakir said after the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122 draw at the  Aspire Dome on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Asian Cup holder Iraq was drawn  against Iran, North Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Group D  for the 2011 edition in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDPR Korea proved their mettle by  qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa. Iran are former champions  and have always been strong in the championship. The UAE are former Persian Gulf* champions and will be a strong force to reckon with as well. But don&#8217;t  forget that we turned in a series of spirited performances in the 2007  edition. We&#8217;ll hope for a repeat act in Qatar next year,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Shakir  further pointed out that the Iraqi national team is in need of full  support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve talented players and many new young players too  have emerged in the recent years. But as everyone knows, our country is  going through a tough phase and we need everyone&#8217;s support to help the  team&#8217;s cause, he went on to say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was signed as the national  Olympic team coach, but the Iraqi Football Association has shown faith  in me to take over the senior team&#8217;s coaching job. I hope to stay as  coach of the team at the Asian Cup,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Draw for 2011  Asian Cup:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group A:<\/strong> Qatar, Kuwait, China, Uzbekistan<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group  B:<\/strong> Saudi Arabia, Japan, Jordan, Syria<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group C:<\/strong> South Korea,  India, Australia, Bahrain<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group D:<\/strong> Iraq, North Korea, UAE, Iran<\/p>\n<p>* Geografical term corrected by PFDC<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PTV &#8211; DOHA, Iraq&#8217;s soccer manager Nadhim Shakir has said the Iranian national soccer squad&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3168,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11190","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}