{"id":27563,"date":"2017-03-22T15:19:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T22:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=27563"},"modified":"2017-03-22T15:19:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T22:19:39","slug":"qatar-iran-coaches-clash-ahead-of-world-cup-tie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/03\/22\/qatar-iran-coaches-clash-ahead-of-world-cup-tie\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar, Iran coaches clash ahead of World Cup tie"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Soccer Talk – DOHA, A simmering spat between the Qatar and Iran coaches broke out into the open on Wednesday ratcheting up tensions 24 hours ahead of a crucial World Cup qualifier.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jorge Fossati and Carlos Queiroz clashed over alleged comments made by the former Real Madrid coach ahead of the qualifier in Tehran last September which saw Iran win 2-0 with goals in the 94th and 96th minutes.<\/p>\n

There were also angry clashes after the final whistle between players and officials.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Wednesday, Fossati, who was not Qatar\u2019s coach at the time, said the incidents happened because of a bad atmosphere surrounding the match for which he directly blamed Queiroz, who had apparently questioned why Qatar had so many foreign-born players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atmosphere was created before the game\u2026 and this bad atmosphere was created for my colleague by Mr Queiroz,\u201d said Fossati, a Uruguayan, drafted in after Qatar lost their first two games in the current final round of qualifying. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he talked about Qatar, he talked about (the) Qatar federation decision and from my point of view this is not his issue, this is not his right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comparing Qatar\u2019s recruitment to that of Queiroz\u2019s Portugal in using foreign-born players, Fossati added: \u201cPortugal used a few players that were not born in Portugal and I never heard Mr Queiroz talking bad about the federation in Portugal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Queiroz initially brushed off his rival\u2019s remarks, denying he had said anything about Qatar\u2019s selection policy. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy comments are very simple because Fossati with the experience that he has should know that he should not trust everything that he reads in the press.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless he is not the coach with the experience that we believe he is, when he put in my mouth comments that I didn\u2019t do, what can I say?\u201d<\/p>\n

But the 64-year-old, who was also assistant coach at Manchester United, was unable to leave the matter alone.<\/p>\n

Just before leaving the press conference he said he had a \u201ccomment\u201d for \u201cMr Fossati\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comments that he should repeat in Qatar that I said, it is when I praise the Qatar nation for the fact that they brought the World Cup competition 2022 to Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say thank you to the Qatari leaders for everything they have been doing for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s game already threatened to be a tense affair without the added flavour of a touchline personality clash.<\/p>\n

Iran head Group A with 11 points from five games, in one of the two automatic qualifying spots for Russia 2018, and yet to concede a goal.<\/p>\n

Qatar, desperate to qualify for Russia, have just four points from their five games, leaving them six behind second-placed South Korea.<\/p>\n

In third place are Uzbekistan with nine points. The team which finishes third could end up in a play-off spot for Russia.<\/p>\n

Qatar play Uzbekistan in Tashkent on March 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World Soccer Talk – DOHA, A simmering spat between the Qatar and Iran coaches broke…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":27564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,91,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c20-other-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":4606,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27563","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=27563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}