{"id":11816,"date":"2011-01-10T21:56:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T05:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/10\/iraq-start-from-scratch-insists-sidka\/"},"modified":"2011-01-10T21:56:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T05:56:08","slug":"iraq-start-from-scratch-insists-sidka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/01\/10\/iraq-start-from-scratch-insists-sidka\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq start from scratch insists Sidka"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iraq_champ_01\"AFC – DOHA, Coach Wolfgang Sidka urged fans to forget about past glories as Iraq begin their defence of the AFC Asian Cup title with a mouth-watering Group D clash against regional rivals Iran at Al Rayyan Stadium on Tuesday. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Much has changed since Iraq\u2019s heroic victory back in 2007 and in the subsequent three-and-a-half years they have slipped 33 places in the world rankings to 101st, with instability at home still a dominant issue.<\/p>\n

Desperate to rekindle the magic that was worked under Jorvan Vieira at the last edition of the tournament, Iraq have worked their way through a number of coaches before calling on experienced German coach Sidka last year.<\/p>\n

The former Bahrain boss certainly faces a mighty task to get his side through the group stage, let alone stage a successful title defence, and the 56-year-old was quick to stress the need to put behind them their previous triumph and look towards the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge success in 2007 and it was a big surprise. I saw matches from then and a lot of the staff around me have told me of the success and how proud they were of this,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this is a new competition and we start from zero again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs title holders we have confidence but there are other teams who are able to win the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those other teams with title aspirations is Tuesday\u2019s opponents Iran, whose coach Afshin Ghotbi boldly claimed recently his side are strong contenders to claim a fourth Asian Cup trophy and first in over 30 years.<\/p>\n

The match between the two sides is certainly one of the more enticing in the whole group stage and Sidka expects it to prove to be the most closely-fought encounter in the tournament yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it will be a very tough match,\u201d added the former Werder Bremen coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is match between the title holder and three time champions. It will be very hard and I think the toughest of all the games in the group stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have analysed the team and we are prepared to face them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Iraq\u2019s own aspirations at the tournament, Sidka offered a guarded response and instead plans to take things one game at a time.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think (people) are looking too far ahead,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are focused only on our immediate target, which is the match against Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we win we get three points. It is a special match, and a derby but we are focused only on the win and nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – DOHA, Coach Wolfgang Sidka urged fans to forget about past glories as Iraq…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2152,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11816","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=11816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}