{"id":12013,"date":"2011-03-14T20:05:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T03:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/03\/14\/ghalenoei-cool-on-sepahans-acl-experience\/"},"modified":"2011-03-14T20:05:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T03:05:43","slug":"ghalenoei-cool-on-sepahans-acl-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/03\/14\/ghalenoei-cool-on-sepahans-acl-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghalenoei cool on Sepahan\u2019s ACL experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ghalenoei-sepahan11\"AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan coach Amir Ghalenoei has dismissed talk his side\u2019s AFC Champions League experience will give them an extra edge when they take on Al Jazira in their first home fixture of this year\u2019s edition of Asia’s premier club competition on Tuesday. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2007 runners-up won their opening match of the tournament 2-1 at Al Hilal a fortnight ago to take the early leadership of Group A.<\/p>\n

And while the Iranian side are expected to remain on their lofty perch Ghalenoei is preaching caution ahead of the tricky encounter against the United Arab Emirates league leaders.<\/p>\n

Al Jazira drew their opening AFC Champions League match at home to Qatari side Al Gharafa but have strung together a four-match winning streak in their domestic league.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t rely on our seven-year experience in the Champions League. We should look at each edition as a new challenge in trying to compete at our best level of performance,\u201d Ghalenoei said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like talking about chances of qualifying or making predictions. I\u2019m only concentrating on tomorrow\u2019s game at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will play with different tactics during the game. The most important aspect for us is to gain and maintain good ball possession throughout the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei, though, is wary of Al Jazira\u2019s attacking strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have good strikers up front,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t allow their midfield to function well. Their strikers will not be very effective if the play-making duty is not appropriately carried out.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about how well he knew their opponents, he added: \u201cWe\u2019re living in the world of internet and communications. It\u2019s natural all teams have enough knowledge about their opponents these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know them pretty well. They\u2019re currently top of the standings in the UAE Football League.\u00a0 Al Jazira have good players and a professional coach in Abel Braga.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei is being forced to juggle his squad at the moment as they battle on three fronts.<\/p>\n

He is set to be without midfield regular Moharram Navidkia due to injury, although he expects Hadi Aghaili to be ready for action.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to our doctors, Hadi Aghaili will hopefully be fit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fighting in the Iran Professional League, the league cup and the ACL so it\u2019s a must for me to have replacements of the same level as my regular players on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Jazira have injury worries of their own with attacking midfielder\u00a0 Matias Delgado out\u00a0 and boss Abel Braga admitted his side are the underdogs after pointing out the strengths of the hosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSepahan are certainly the strongest team in Group A,\u201d the Brazilian insisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are well aware with their playing style and I know it is going to be a tough game for us. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately we will be without Delgado and that\u2019s where we may suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cMy counterpart in Sepahan (Ghalenoei) has outstanding abilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe Sepahan did deserve to win their first match against Al Hilal. Sepahan exposed their weaknesses and finally managed to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Sepahan\u2019s experience in Asia\u2019s most prestigious club competition, the Al Jazira coach believes his team can still match the Iranians.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is predictable in football, so despite Sepahan\u2019s long experience in this tournament, I am hopeful we can play well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan coach Amir Ghalenoei has dismissed talk his side\u2019s AFC Champions League…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3805,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12013","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=12013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}