{"id":11511,"date":"2010-09-23T14:50:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T21:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/09\/23\/ghotbi-eyes-another-waff-title-for-iran\/"},"modified":"2010-09-23T14:50:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T21:50:42","slug":"ghotbi-eyes-another-waff-title-for-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/09\/23\/ghotbi-eyes-another-waff-title-for-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghotbi eyes another WAFF title for Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
AFC – AMMAN, Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi has said that he hopes to guide his side to a fifth title win in the West Asia Football Federation (WAFF) Championship to be held in Jordan. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran, who previously won the title in 2000, 2004, 2007, 2008 are in Group 1 along with Bahrain and Oman.<\/p>\n

Hosts Jordan are in Group 2 with Syria and Kuwait, while 2002 winners Iraq will play against Yemen and Palestine in group 3.<\/p>\n

The tournament runs through September 24 until October 3.<\/p>\n

“It will be an interesting tournament,” Ghotbi told reporters here shortly before he and his squad left for Jordan.<\/p>\n

“We have achieved good results playing against teams from East Asia and we hope to do so with teams from the west of the continent.”<\/p>\n

In the buildup to the tournament Iran beat China 2-0 on September 3 and four days later won against South Korea 1-0. Both matches were away from home.<\/p>\n

“We are expecting to come home as champions, we have learned to think of winning in all circumstances. I only plan for victory,” Ghotbi said, adding that team spirit in his squad was high.<\/p>\n

Ghotbi said that taking part in the WAFF championship would be a good practice for the Iranians ahead of the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122.<\/p>\n

His comments on the reason for Team Melli participating in the WAFF’s tournament were echoed by Iran Football Federation President Ali Kaffashian.<\/p>\n

“We have played against big teams like China and South Korea but we have not played against West Asian nations,” he told the ISNA news agency.<\/p>\n

“It will good to gain experience playing against these teams who will be playing against us in the AFC Asian Cup.”<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – AMMAN, Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi has said that he hopes to guide his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22615,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":4369,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11511","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=11511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}