{"id":11196,"date":"2010-04-27T19:13:49","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T02:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/27\/mes-is-a-little-big-name-for-buoyant-bonacic\/"},"modified":"2010-04-27T19:13:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T02:13:49","slug":"mes-is-a-little-big-name-for-buoyant-bonacic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/27\/mes-is-a-little-big-name-for-buoyant-bonacic\/","title":{"rendered":"Mes is a little big name for buoyant Bonacic"},"content":{"rendered":"
AFC – KERMAN, Mes Kerman boss Luka Bonacic believes his side’s 3-1 win over Saudi giants Al Hilal proves the Iranians are among Asia’s elite. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Goals from Edinho, substitute Paulo Zaltron and Mahdi Rajabzadeh at Shahid Bahonar Stadium saw the home side inflict a first defeat on Al Hilal in this year’s competition.<\/p>\n

The result also saw them reach the knockout stage from Group D along with the Saudis after a last minute goal from Ali Abbas helped Al Ahli snatch a 2-2 draw with Al Sadd in Doha.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe began the group stage challenge with a win an ended it with a win, too. We proved Mes is a big name in Asia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only blunder we made throughout the tournament was to lose against Al Ahli. Had we not lost to the Emirates\u2019 side, we\u2019d have certainly been among the last sixteen by now (before the final round of games).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy players feel great when they play at home, they should really have the same feeling when we play outside Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having secured their place in the last 16, Bonacic’s thoughts now turn to pressing domestic matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t be thinking about the ACL, from now on what we have to focus our attention on is the domestic league and our vital match against Teraktor,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have unfortunately lost a game after each win recently. I do need to do something to stop this pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missing Christian Wilhelmsson, Yasser Al Qahtani and Lee Young-pyo, Al Hilal fielded a youthful line-up with their place as group winners already assured.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assistant coach Reinhard Stumpf was in charge as boss Eric Gerets was suspended following a red card in goalless draw with Al Sadd and decided against the trip, and was pleased with what he saw from his side despite the defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy regular players did not play today. We\u2019d initially targeted qualifying for the next round as winners of our group and that was done,\u201d said the German.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were at home, we made a decision to field the young boys and I am now pleased they\u2019ve gained the experience of an international match in a continental tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stumpf added he had no preference as to who Al Hilal will face in the knockout stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sure what will happen in the next round but it doesn\u2019t matter which team we have to play against since we are determined to make the final match and in order to fulfil that, we have to beat everyone on the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, this is football and I can\u2019t say who will be the winners of the tournament at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stumpf also hinted there could be a change of keeper after Mohammad Al Deayea was at fault for Mes’ third goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a team loses or wins each, every one of the players share the victory or the loss, so I\u2019m not going to blame Mohammad Al Deayea for the goals he conceded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we might change our player in goal as the next games will undoubtedly be tougher.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – KERMAN, Mes Kerman boss Luka Bonacic believes his side’s 3-1 win over Saudi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22615,"featured_media":11112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3647,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11196","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=11196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}