{"id":26216,"date":"2016-10-05T14:53:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T21:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=26216"},"modified":"2016-10-05T14:53:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T21:53:15","slug":"russia-2018-asian-qualifiers-third-round-uzbekistan-vs-iran-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2016\/10\/05\/russia-2018-asian-qualifiers-third-round-uzbekistan-vs-iran-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia 2018 Asian Qualifiers Third Round: Uzbekistan vs. Iran [PREVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – TASHKENT, Uzbekistan boast Group A\u2019s only 100% record after wins over Syria and Qatar but they will face another tough test with the visit of Islamic Republic of Iran who are also undefeated in their own Russia 2018 Asian Qualifying Third Round campaign so far.<\/strong><\/p>\n

*Uzbekistan coach Samvel Babayan believes his side are facing a big challenge with the visit of \u201cAsia\u2019s number one side\u201d.<\/p>\n

*Top of Group A battle enthuses Iran coach Carlos Queiroz who feels side improving year on year.<\/p>\n

*Hosts skipper Odil Akhmedov is an injury doubt with Server Djeparov expected to wear the captain\u2019s armband.<\/p>\n

*Midfielders Ashkan Dejagah and Alireza Jahanbakhsh back in contention for the visitors after injury-enforced absences.<\/p>\n

*After a win and a draw in their first two games Iran are second in Group A, two points behind early leaders Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

Match Details<\/strong>
\nDate: 6 October 2016 (Thursday)
\nKickoff time: 6pm UST, 1pm GMT
\nVenue: Bunyodkor Stadium, Tashkent
\nReferee: Benjamin Williams (Australia)<\/p>\n

Coach Quotes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Samvel Babayan, Uzbekistan<\/strong>
\n\u201cThursday\u2019s game see us come up against the group favorites. They are the number one ranked team in Asia and they have many high level players playing at European teams. But we have studied Iran very well and we will try to show good football.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are all strong teams at this stage of qualifying. For example, Syria showed a good performance against both us and Korea Republic in the first two matches. Each game we play becomes the most important game at this stage. But we are thinking only of Iran now. We watched many of their games and we will try to find way to beat them. My players are ready for any situation in the match and our aim is to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos Queiroz, Iran<\/strong>
\n\u201cWe will play against the best team in our group on Thursday. Uzbekistan won their first two matches and are leaders in Group A. Nonetheless, my team will try to secure the win for the Iranian people. My team is clearly improving year on year. When I began to work in Iran we had only one player playing for a European side, now we have 11 who are at various clubs in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Ashkan] Dejagah and [Alireza] Jahanbakhsh were injured some time ago, but they have recovered and are ready to play against Uzbekistan. It is good news for Iran and bad news for Uzbekistan. Of course, Iran has star players aside from those two, we are a team not individuals, and we have no player selection issues for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head-to-Head Record<\/strong>
\n11\/06\/15 Uzbekistan 0-1 Iran
\n15\/11\/12 Iran 0-1 Uzbekistan
\n03\/06\/12 Uzbekistan 0-1 Iran
\n05\/09\/09 Uzbekistan 0-0 Iran
\n11\/07\/07 Iran 2-1 Uzbekistan<\/p>\n

Form<\/strong>
\nUzbekistan LWWWW
\nIran WWWWD<\/p>\n

How they fared on MD2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Qatar 0-1 Uzbekistan<\/strong>
\nEgor Krimets\u2019 86th minute header maintained Uzbekistan\u2019s perfect start to their campaign to qualify for Russia 2018 as the defender scored the only goal of the game and secure a second consecutive 1-0 win for the White Wolves, after they bested Syria by the same scoreline on Matchday One.<\/p>\n

China 0-0 Iran<\/strong>
\nIran played out a goalless stalemate with China in front of a partisan crowd at Shenyang Olympic Stadium with neither side able to get the better of proceedings. Carlos Queiroz\u2019s side did maintain their unbeaten record, though, and the coach was happy with a point from a tough away fixture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – TASHKENT, Uzbekistan boast Group A\u2019s only 100% record after wins over Syria and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":26217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":3300,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26216","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=26216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}