{"id":23940,"date":"2016-01-14T09:15:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=23940"},"modified":"2016-01-14T09:15:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:15:54","slug":"irans-motahari-fully-focused-on-u23-title-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2016\/01\/14\/irans-motahari-fully-focused-on-u23-title-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran&#8217;s Motahari fully focused on U23 title challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>the-afc.com &#8211; DOHA, <strong>Talented forward Arsalan Motahari, who sent a strong warning to rivals when he scored one and set up another as Iran kicked off their AFC U23 Championship Group A campaign on Tuesday with a 2-0 win over Syria, has declared that winning the continental title is his team\u2019s absolute priority.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Motahari bagged a superb solo effort in the second half before setting up Milad Mohammadi for the second as Mohammad Khakpour\u2019s side made the perfect start to their attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n<p>With host nation Qatar to come on Wednesday, Motahari has declared that the Iranians are fully focused on the task at hand, despite the significant lure of a ticket to Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s vital that we sustain the momentum. We want all nine points from the three group games,\u201d said the Naft Tehran star who bagged the MVP award at last November\u2019s West Asian Football Federation U-23 Championship in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re fully focused on our next game against Qatar. They\u2019re another tough opponent and they\u2019re playing at home, which would give them the edge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to win the trophy. We\u2019re not here to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Motahari, the Iran Pro League\u2019s best young player last season, was, however, quick to praise the part his teammates played in their success against Syria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was happy to score the championship\u2019s opening goal, but it was possible only because of the good support of my team-mates. Of course, I was in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always prefer to think about my team. I think more about the game on hand. Each game is a final for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>NEXT GROUP A MATCHES:<\/strong><br \/>\nJanuary 15: China v Syria<br \/>\nJanuary 15: Iran v Qatar<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy of the-afc.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>the-afc.com &#8211; DOHA, Talented forward Arsalan Motahari, who sent a strong warning to rivals when&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23098,"featured_media":23941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c14-ipl-league-persian-gulf-cup"],"views":1474,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23940","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\/23098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}