{"id":19205,"date":"2014-09-09T11:28:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T18:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=19205"},"modified":"2014-09-09T11:28:46","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T18:28:46","slug":"afshin-ghotbi-plays-down-links-with-iran-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2014\/09\/09\/afshin-ghotbi-plays-down-links-with-iran-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Afshin Ghotbi plays down links with Iran job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Former Persepolis and Shimizu S-Pulse manager has been linked with Iran national team vacant job after rumors suggested that Carlos Queiroz didn\u2019t reach an agreement with Iran Football Federation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ghotbi, who was fired as the head coach of first division J. League club Shimizu S-Pulse last month, is currently without a team but has offers from Japan, South Korea and China. He led Persepolis to the title in 2006-07 season in his first year in charge with the red giant unable to repeat this success since then.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Fars News Agency, Ghotbi discussed his conditions and rumors linking him with Iran job. Following are excerpts of the interview:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Ghotbi, Iranian media has been linking you with Iran and Persepolis job these days, what is your opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had a lot of good memories in Iran and all the Iranian fans remain in my heart. After three and a half years I still receive kind messages from Persepolis fans. I will be ready to help my country whenever they need me but neither the IFF nor Persepolis have contacted me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have any other offers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes I have some offers from China, Japan and South Korea but I\u2019m waiting for the season to finish and then a decision will be made.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Since you left Team Melli, Ashkan Dejagah and Reza Goochannejhad have been added. What is your opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I discovered Ghoochannejhad. I travelled to Netherlands to watch him play. We wanted him to play for the national team but it never happened. I was also in contact with Ashkan Dejagah&#8217;s father and coach but it did not work out for him to play for Iran. If I had Goochannejhad and Dejagah in the 2011 AFC Asian Cup I would have definitely led Iran to the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, Former Persepolis and Shimizu S-Pulse manager has been linked with Iran&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3948,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19205","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=19205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}