{"id":20090,"date":"2015-01-10T06:21:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T14:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=20090"},"modified":"2015-01-10T06:21:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T14:21:58","slug":"bahrain-urged-not-to-rest-on-their-laurels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2015\/01\/10\/bahrain-urged-not-to-rest-on-their-laurels\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain urged not to rest on their laurels"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC Asian Cup – MELBOURNE, Eid took over from predecessor Adnan Hamad during November\u2019s Gulf Cup and oversaw a credible goalless draw with eventual champions Qatar.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And since arriving in Australia, 2004 AFC Asian Cup semi-finalists Bahrain have beaten both Saudi Arabia and Jordan in friendlies to raise hopes of ending a run of back-to-back group stage exits in 2007 and 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last two friendly matches are not enough for a nomination for Bahrain to qualify. They need more effort to do a good job; they need more confidence for the younger players to do a good job,\u201d said former national team assistant Eid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of younger players with some others that have experience. Tomorrow we play against a strong team with a lot of professional players and experienced players. We hope to do a good job and get a positive result.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe matches between Bahrain and Iran are always tough games. Each country or region has a derby or classic, and Bahrain and Iran is like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

On paper Bahrain are the lowest ranked team in Group C behind Asia\u2019s number one side and 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers Iran, Gulf Cup champions Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

But despite also losing all three group stage games in Qatar in 2011, Eid remained upbeat over Bahrain\u2019s chances of securing only a second appearance in the knockout stage having eventually finished fourth in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no team that has the best ranking; all of them are the same,\u201d added Eid. \u201cAny team in this group can go through the qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eid, though, refused to believe suggestions from the Iran camp that they are underprepared for the tournament after seeing Carlos Queiroz\u2019s side only lose to Argentina at the 2014 FIFA World Cup following a stoppage time strike from Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a great standing in Asia and did a good job in the World Cup against Argentina,\u201d said Eid.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome teams come to this tournament and don\u2019t prepare well, but do very good in the tournament. Other teams come to the tournament and prepare well but don\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC Asian Cup – MELBOURNE, Eid took over from predecessor Adnan Hamad during November\u2019s Gulf…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":19958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news"],"views":2924,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20090","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=20090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}