{"id":12128,"date":"2011-05-03T08:11:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T15:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/03\/high-flying-emirates-aim-for-hat-trick\/"},"modified":"2011-05-03T08:11:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T15:11:16","slug":"high-flying-emirates-aim-for-hat-trick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/03\/high-flying-emirates-aim-for-hat-trick\/","title":{"rendered":"High-flying Emirates aim for hat-trick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"acltrophy03\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/acltrophy03.jpg\" height=\"236\" width=\"350\" \/>AFC &#8211; Ras Al Khaimah, <strong>Emirates entertain Group D leaders Zob Ahan knowing a  third consecutive victory on home soil can see them take a giant stride  towards the knockout stage of the 2011 AFC Champions League. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UAE second division team qualified for Asia\u2019s top table with  a surprise triumph in the President\u2019s Cup and as such, were expected to  struggle in a group that contains last year\u2019s finalists as well as Al  Shabab &#8211; who reached the last four in 2010 &#8211; and Al Rayyan.<\/p>\n<p>After  a narrow defeat in Iran to open their campaign, Emirates went on to  stun both the Qataris and Al Shabab at Emirates Club Stadium and lie  second in the table on six points, four behind the Iranians but one  ahead of Al Shabab.<\/p>\n<p>Victory over Zob Ahan will therefore leave  Emirates &#8211; who are also closing in on a return to UAE\u2019s top flight &#8211; in  great shape to claim a place in the last 16 when they visit Al Rayyan in  their final game next week.<\/p>\n<p>Mustafa Al Saedi and Hadef Al Zaabi  are suspended though and boss Ghrairi Ghazi will once again look to  prolific striker Nabil Daoudi to carry the home side\u2019s attacking threat,  although the Moroccan was only fit enough to come off the bench in the  win over Al Shabab.<\/p>\n<p>Zob Ahan, meanwhile, have looked impressive  as they look to emulate last season\u2019s run to the final, where they  ultimately lost out to Seongnam Ilhwa.<\/p>\n<p>They are yet to taste defeat in this season\u2019s competition and dropped their only points in a goalless draw at Al Shabab.<\/p>\n<p>However,  with fellow 2011 AFC Champions League hopefuls Sepahan poised to take  the Iran Pro League crown, it means Zob Ahan boss Mansour Ebrahimzadeh &#8211;  whose side finished runners-up in last season\u2019s domestic competition &#8211;  can turn his full attention to going one step further on the Asian stage  this time around and a point in the UAE will see them move closer to  that goal with a place in the next phase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; Ras Al Khaimah, Emirates entertain Group D leaders Zob Ahan knowing a third&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2262,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128","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=12128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}