{"id":11457,"date":"2010-08-30T15:45:56","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T22:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/08\/30\/ghotbi-targets-afc-asian-cup-triumph\/"},"modified":"2010-08-30T15:45:56","modified_gmt":"2010-08-30T22:45:56","slug":"ghotbi-targets-afc-asian-cup-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/08\/30\/ghotbi-targets-afc-asian-cup-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghotbi targets AFC Asian Cup triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"ghotbi-people2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ghotbi-people2.jpg\" height=\"286\" width=\"440\" \/>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi said on Sunday he is hoping to pilot his side  to glory in the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122 which would be Team Melli\u2019s  first title in 35 years. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The draw for the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122, to be played in  Qatar from January 7-29, groups Iran, the Asian powerhouse of the late  1960s and through the 1970s, with defending continental champions Iraq,  DPR Korea and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My aim is for Team Melli  (national team) to make it to the final after 35 years and become  champions,&#8221; Ghotbi said, referring to Iran&#8217;s last triumph in 1976, when  they beat Kuwait to become champions for the third time in a row.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When  one promises something he has to have control on all the circumstances,  but when I cannot control many of the circumstances I cannot promise  the championship,&#8221; he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But we will do our best to make 75 million Iranians happy,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The  atmosphere in the Team Melli camp is good, and our training is going in  the right direction. So far we have achieved a good level of confidence  in our away games,&#8221; Ghotbi said, referring to a 3-1 win over Armenia on  August 11.<\/p>\n<p>He praised the current team lineup, which includes  Javad Nekounam and Masoud Shojaei of Spanish La Liga club Osasuna,  adding: &#8220;The door for other players to the national squad is not closed  yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iran are to play more away friendlies, against China on  September 3 and Korea Republic on September 7, as part of their AFC  Asian Cup preparations, said the coach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I chose these two teams  since they were the best teams available on those dates. China has been  totally transformed, especially after not making it to South Africa  2010, and Korea will be a very good challenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ghotbi previously  worked with the US national team before a long stint assisting Dutch  coaches Guus Hiddink, Dick Advocaat and then Pim Verbeek with the  Koreans.<\/p>\n<p>Iran, with a current FIFA ranking of 65 that puts them  behind Japan, Korea Republic and Australia, won the AFC Asian Cup in  1968, 1972 and 1976, and they hosted the continent&#8217;s biggest football  event in 1968 and 1976.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN, Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi said on Sunday he is hoping to pilot&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3595,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11457","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=11457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}