{"id":21251,"date":"2015-04-23T09:28:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T16:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=21251"},"modified":"2015-04-23T09:29:27","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T16:29:27","slug":"mansourian-bemoans-packed-schedule-as-group-b-goes-down-to-the-wire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2015\/04\/23\/mansourian-bemoans-packed-schedule-as-group-b-goes-down-to-the-wire\/","title":{"rendered":"Mansourian Bemoans Packed Schedule as Group B Goes Down to the Wire"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – TEHRAN, Naft Tehran coach Alireza Mansourian was left regretting his team\u2019s inability to pick up all three points against Pakhtakor on Wednesday as the outcome of Group B of the AFC Champions League goes down to the wire.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Neither of the two berths from the group in the Round of 16 have been determined with five matches played, leaving the former Iran international midfielder frustrated as a difficult schedule in both the AFC Champions League and the domestic league takes its toll. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought hard to take the three points but unfortunately we were held to a draw,\u201d said Mansourian. \u201cPakhtakor came here for a win and everyone knows how tough our group is. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith this result everything will be decided on the last day, which is the thing we didn\u2019t want at all.” <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to remain at the top of the table so we will play for the three points in the last match against Al Ain. I\u2019m not happy with the result, we should have taken the three points but on the other hand I\u2019m happy we are still the favourites to qualify from this group.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gholamreza Rezaei put Naft in front after 25 minutes only for Vladimir Kozak to level for the Uzbeks nine minutes before the halftime break, leaving both clubs frustrated with the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a heavy defeat against Zob Ahan in the league it was very important for us to beat Pakhtakor so my players could regain their confidence,\u201d said Mansourian. \u201cAnother important thing in this match was that I had to rest some of my key players who were in the starting line-up for the last eight matches. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are under a lot of pressure because we will play both in the Iran league and the AFC Champions League with all of our strength. We have played eight matches during the last 30 days and that is damaging the physical form of our players.\u201d <\/p>\n

The draw moves Naft on to eight points from five games with Pakhtakor on six meaning both clubs go into the final round of group matches with the opportunity to progress. <\/p>\n

\u201cBoth teams had a very difficult game but the fans enjoyed a wonderful match with a lot of chances at both ends,\u201d said Pakhtakor coach Samvel Babayan. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow both teams still have the chance of qualifying with this result. We could have won the match although we had a very good performance in defence. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the teams in this group have the chance to qualify but tonight\u2019s match between Al Shabab and Al Ain will decide everything, after that I can tell you which two teams would progress to the next round.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – TEHRAN, Naft Tehran coach Alireza Mansourian was left regretting his team\u2019s inability to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":21252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-first-division"],"views":1421,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251","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\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}