{"id":12099,"date":"2011-04-20T09:56:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T16:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/04\/20\/ebrahimzadeh-eyes-big-acl-week-for-iran\/"},"modified":"2011-04-20T09:56:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T16:56:15","slug":"ebrahimzadeh-eyes-big-acl-week-for-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/04\/20\/ebrahimzadeh-eyes-big-acl-week-for-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebrahimzadeh eyes big ACL week for Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/images.the-afc.com\/afc\/comps\/acl\/2011\/300x200\/3x2_zoba_rayn_react.jpg\" height=\"252\" width=\"379\" \/>AFC &#8211; ESFAHAN, <strong>Zob Ahan\u2019s head coach Mansour Ebrahimzadeh hopes his team\u2019s 1-0 win over  Qatar\u2019s Al Rayyan heralds a successful week for Iranian football. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Esmaeil Farhadi\u2019s first-half goal lifted Zob Ahan to 10 points,  top of 2011 AFC Champions League Group D, as well as leaving the  visitors bottom of the group with a solitary point.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday  sees Group A leaders Sepahan in action also taking on Qatari opposition  in the form of Al Gharafa, while Piroozi face Bunyodkor in Group C.<\/p>\n<p>And  Ebrahimzadeh said: \u201cI am happy with the victory of Zob Ahan as an  Iranian team, I hope tomorrow we hear about two more wins from Iranian  teams. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope we don\u2019t play against an Iranian team in the  quarter-finals. That way, we would have a better chance of seeing more  Iranian teams in the semi-finals of the tournament.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>On  Tuesday&#8217;s performance, the coach added: \u201cAs I said before the game, this  was the last chance for Al Rayyan to pave their way to the  quarter-finals, so they made their best effort on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe  scored the goal at the right time, but afterward we were a bit exhausted  in the second-half. I knew they would try to make the most of  free-kicks and fouls and that could have been dangerous for us, but  Shahab Gordan produced a good performance in goal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Al Rayyan  boss Paulo Autuori admitted the defeat realistically ended his side\u2019s  chances of progressing to the last16, but drew on the experience gained  from the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe tournament ends for us only after the group stage,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve  got more experience now and have ascended to a higher level of  football. I predict better days for the future of the team, because the  AFC Champions League has taught my players a lot of new things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am hopeful we can get some success in continental tournaments in future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Autuori  admitted the games against Zob Ahan in particular have been a great  learning experience and had words of praise for Iranian football in  general.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIran has one of the highest levels of football in Asia,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have enjoyed playing with Zob Ahan in Group C as it helped us gain good experience. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Zob Ahan repeat how they played against us in Doha, they\u2019ll most probably make it to the semi-final and even the final.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; ESFAHAN, Zob Ahan\u2019s head coach Mansour Ebrahimzadeh hopes his team\u2019s 1-0 win over&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22615,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2212,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12099","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=12099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}