{"id":26272,"date":"2016-10-13T17:58:39","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T00:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=26272"},"modified":"2016-10-13T17:58:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T00:58:39","slug":"afc-u-19-championship-2016-md1-group-c-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2016\/10\/13\/afc-u-19-championship-2016-md1-group-c-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC U-19 Championship 2016 &#8211; MD1: Group C [PREVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; MANAMA, <strong>Coach Oscar Moreno is confident that defending champions Qatar can once again impress at the AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 as they prepare to take on Islamic Republic of Iran in their Group C opener at Bahrain National Stadiumon Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two years ago in Myanmar, Qatar beat DPR Korea 1-0 in the final to claim their first-ever AFC U-19 title.<\/p>\n<p>The young Maroons are back in the thick of it this year after an impressive qualifying campaign, finishing top of their group after three consecutive wins and 13 goals scored.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are pleased to be here and ready to play in this tournament,\u201d said Moreno.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis group is very balanced and every team has a chance to reach the next round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are really high expectations on us obviously but we have a lot of confidence in our team and expect to reach the knockout stage, qualify for the semi-finals and make the U-20 World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Islamic Rrepublic of Iran, who won the tournament four consecutive times between 1973 and 1976, are determined to improve on their group stage finish from 2014 after a flawless qualifying stint that saw them rack up three wins and score 15 goals without reply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis team has no injuries and is physically and mentally ready,\u201d said coach Amir Peiravani.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQatar, our opponents, are one of the best teams in the competition but we aim to give the best performance we can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTomorrow we hope for good football, fair play and a good result for Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Friday\u2019s other Group C match, also played at Bahrain National Stadium, six-time runners-up Japan face Yemen, who have never progressed past the group stage in five tries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a short tournament so the first match is important,\u201d said Japan coach Atsushi Uchiyama.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hope to play aggressive football and win as many games as possible and try to do well in this tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYemen have a team that are technically skilled and fast paced, so we need to be prepared but we are determined to qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mohammed Al Nufiay\u2019s Yemen team finished second in their qualifying group behind Saudi Arabia thanks to twin 1-0 wins against Syria and Turkmenistan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have prepared ourselves for many stages,\u201d said Al Nufiay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone knows about the problems and conflict in Yemen but we hope to do well and inspire the people back home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Photo: AFC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; MANAMA, Coach Oscar Moreno is confident that defending champions Qatar can once again&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":26273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,140,86,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-u19","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-c14-youth-teams"],"views":1879,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26272","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=26272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}