{"id":11773,"date":"2011-01-02T20:52:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T04:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/02\/nekounam-strikes-in-iran-victory\/"},"modified":"2011-01-02T20:52:18","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T04:52:18","slug":"nekounam-strikes-in-iran-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/02\/nekounam-strikes-in-iran-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Nekounam strikes in Iran victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"neku-tm\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/neku-tm.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"370\" \/>AFC &#8211; DOHA, <strong>An injury-time strike by Javad Nekounam earned Iran a 1-0 win over  Angola at Al Sadd Stadium on Sunday night as Afshin Ghotbi\u2019s team  continued their preparations for the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011\u2122. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The match was the last of Iran\u2019s Doha-based training camp and  Team Melli will fly back to Tehran on Monday morning before returning to  Qatar on January 6 ahead of their opening game with Iraq on January 11.<\/p>\n<p>The  Iranians dominated possession throughout the game but were capable only  of carving out a handful of goal-scoring opportunities. <\/p>\n<p>Iran  went close in the 20th minute when Hadi Aghili\u2019s header flew across the  face of goal and Seyed Jalal Hosseini just missed making contact at the  far post while eight minutes before the break Pejman Nouri\u2019s left-footed  effort went across the face of goal.<\/p>\n<p>Iran increased the pressure  in the second half despite seeing their rhythm disrupted by a host of  substitutions. One of those replacements, Iman Mobali, saw his effort  from distance go just wide while Javad Nekounam missed from similar  range just before the hour mark.<\/p>\n<p>Angolan goalkeeper Lama,  meanwhile, was on hand to deny Mohammed Reza Khalatbari when he also  shot from outside the area, the substitute midfielder seeing his attempt  pushed wide for a corner.<\/p>\n<p>Iran\u2019s defence was almost caught out  20 minutes from time when the Angolans made a rare break, but Valdo shot  high over the bar when well placed.<\/p>\n<p>Aghili could have won the  game for Iran with eight minutes remaining, but his header \u2013 while  unmarked and from close range \u2013 was sent wide of Lama\u2019s right post while  just seconds later the Sepahan defender was just off target again, this  time heading over the bar.<\/p>\n<p>Nekounam finally settled the game in  the dying seconds when his right-foot shot from the edge of the area  found the bottom corner of the goal to give the Iranians the perfect  send off at the end of their training camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; DOHA, An injury-time strike by Javad Nekounam earned Iran a 1-0 win over&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":4794,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773","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=11773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}