{"id":28916,"date":"2017-08-30T01:39:13","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T08:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=28916"},"modified":"2017-08-30T01:39:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T08:39:13","slug":"korea-republic-must-forget-iran-jinx-ahn-jung-hwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/08\/30\/korea-republic-must-forget-iran-jinx-ahn-jung-hwan\/","title":{"rendered":"“Korea Republic must forget Iran jinx”: Ahn Jung-Hwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – SEOUL, Ahn Jung-hwan insists Korea Republic must forget about their \u201cjinx\u201d against the Islamic Republic of Iran ahead of the East Asians\u2019 crucial FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 qualifier with their longtime nemesis at Seoul World Cup Stadium on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Taeguk Warriors have endured an inconsistent campaign to date and currently occupy second position in Group A, a point ahead of third-placed Uzbekistan, and seven adrift of already-qualified Iran, who they last beat in 2011 and have since lost four in a row to.<\/p>\n

And Ahn, who most memorably starred in the Koreans\u2019 run to the 2002 FIFA World Cup semi-finals on home soil, is under no illusions as to the size of the challenge the current generation face with just two games remaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Korean national team is now backed into a corner so the first thing we should do is try and feel relaxed. We shouldn\u2019t think about the jinx \u2013 we can break it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we win the match it will be the opportunity for us to get rid of this mindset about Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korea Republic began Group A strongly, taking seven points from their first three games, but since losing 1-0 in Iran in October last year, have won two and lost two, while the unbeaten Iranians have gone from strength to strength.<\/p>\n

The East Asians do, though, have a perfect home record and will look to maintain that run ahead of what could prove a winner-takes-all encounter with Uzbekistan in Tashkent on Matchday 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should play our own game,\u201d added Ahn. \u201cIran have already qualified so they are not going to push and won\u2019t be in a hurry, so we must play with intensity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran have nothing to lose and we have to win so the match will be really difficult, and we need to remain calm or we could lose the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think at the moment we\u2019re not much of a team. Every side has some problems, and we are having a hard time just now, but we are in transition and we can overcome the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

After making his national-team debut in 1997 Ahn went on to represent his country, and score, at both the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, while he was also in the squad for the 2010 edition. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now it\u2019s difficult to talk about the next World Cup because we haven\u2019t qualified yet. The most important thing is to qualify as it will be hard to recover from not going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – SEOUL, Ahn Jung-hwan insists Korea Republic must forget about their \u201cjinx\u201d against the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":28917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,93,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":2643,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28916","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=28916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}