{"id":16305,"date":"2013-11-07T12:18:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T20:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=16305"},"modified":"2013-11-08T01:54:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:54:40","slug":"23-invited-for-asian-cup-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2013\/11\/07\/23-invited-for-asian-cup-qualifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"23 invited for Asian Cup qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, Iran boss Carlos Queiroz announced his 23-man squad for the Asian Cup qualifiers in Thailand on November 15 and in Lebanon four days later.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran are topping the table with seven points out of three matches and will be eager to seal qualification after the two away games.<\/p>\n

With all of Iran’s key players present in the squad, the Portuguese’s latest selection still offers enough room for some controversy.<\/p>\n

Apart from the injured Khosro Heydari, leftback Hashem Beikzadeh is missing from the recent regular starters, leaving Ehsan Hajsafi as lone obvious option as left fullback.<\/p>\n

Sepahan duo Shoja Khalilzadeh and Omid Ebrahimi were also left out while again IPL starlets Bakhtiar Rahmani and Payam Sadeghian were ignored. Also supertalent Sardar Azmoun received no invitation this time around.<\/p>\n

Fresh blood is only added by NEC Nijmegen legionnaire Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Sepahan reserve Yaghoub Karimi while midfielder Ghasem Hadadifar, Reza Haghighi and Maziar Zare return after quite some time – the latter possibly being considered as alternative for central defense as well.<\/p>\n

Below comes the 23-man roster.<\/p>\n

Goalkeepers:<\/strong>
\nRahman Ahmadi – Sepahan Esfahan
\nDaniel Davari – Eintracht Braunschweig (GER)
\nHamed Lak – Tractorsazi Tabriz<\/p>\n

Defenders:<\/strong>
\nHossein Mahini – Persepolis Tehran
\nSteven Beitashour – San Jose Earthquake (USA)
\nPejman Montazeri – Esteghlal Tehran
\nJalal Hosseini – Persepolis Tehran
\nAmir-Hossein Sadeghi – Esteghlal Tehran
\nMaziar Zare – Malavan Anzali
\nEhsan Hajsafi – Sepahan Esfahan<\/p>\n

Midfielders:<\/strong>
\nJavad Nekounam – Esteghlal Tehran
\nReza Haghighi – Persepolis Tehran
\nAndranik Teymourian – Esteghlal Tehran
\nGhasem Hadadifar – Zob Ahan Esfahan
\nMojtaba Jabbari – Al Ahli (QAT)
\nMohammad Nouri – Persepolis Tehran<\/p>\n

Strikers:<\/strong>
\nAshkan Dejagah – Fulham FC (ENG)
\nAlireza Jahanbakhsh – NEC Nijmegen (NED)
\nReza Ghoochannejhad – Standard Liege (BEL)
\nKarim Ansarifard – Tractorsazi Tabriz
\nMasoud Shojaei – UD Las Palmas (ESP)
\nMohammad-Reza Khalatbari – Persepolis Tehran
\nYaghoub Karimi – Sepahan Esfahan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, Iran boss Carlos Queiroz announced his 23-man squad for the Asian Cup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":13728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3986,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16305","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=16305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}