{"id":29324,"date":"2017-10-06T16:47:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T23:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=29324"},"modified":"2017-10-06T16:47:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T23:47:20","slug":"fifa-u-17-world-cup-iran-could-carry-the-torch-for-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/10\/06\/fifa-u-17-world-cup-iran-could-carry-the-torch-for-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA U-17 World Cup: Iran could carry the torch for Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Times of India – MARGAO, They\u2019ve been the talking point everywhere. Not just in Goa, where they have been based for the group matches of the Fifa U-17 World Cup, but elsewhere too, Iran\u2019s red-hot form in pre-season friendlies has not gone unnoticed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran coach Abbas Chamanyan has been telling his boys at the start of every training session that such \u2018friendly\u2019 results don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

These are not \u2018friendly\u2019 results you can ignore, though. Iran trained at the Marbella Football Center in Spain before coming to Goa and scored convincing victories against France (4-0) and Mexico (3-0). These are no ordinary teams; both are participating in this edition of the U-17 World Cup, although Chamanyan is at pains to explain that what matters are those 90 minutes against Guinea in their opener on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now ready for the World Cup. Friendly results don\u2019t matter. They don\u2019t give you points. We have to work hard from the first match and aim, first, for a semifinal place,\u201d said Chamanyan.<\/p>\n

Iran have never progressed beyond the Round of 16. If they do not better that in India, it will be a disaster. They are, by a distance, the best side from Asia and only lost the final of the AFC U-16 Championship on penalties against Iraq. Nobody had any doubt they were the better side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve trained hard for the last three years. A semifinal place remains our first goal,\u201d said captain Mohammad Sharifi.<\/p>\n

During the qualifiers in Goa last year, Sharifi emerged as one of the star and is now being touted as the next big thing in Iran. He has already made his first senior appearance for Esteghlal Khuzestan in an Iranian League match \u2013 before the Asian qualifiers in Goa \u2013 and then bettered that by becoming the youngest Iranian footballer to participate in an AFC Champions League match.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important and difficult game is always the opener. Guinea is a high-quality team from Africa. They will surely cause us problems,\u201d said the coach.<\/p>\n

Like Chamanyan said, Iran\u2019s first round opponents are no pushovers. Any qualifier from Africa needs to be taken seriously in age-group competitions and Guinea deserve respect. After all, they\u2019ve qualified at the expense of former champions Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Morocco and Cameroon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first game against Iran is important. We need to win it to raise our confidence and help us make it to the knockout round which is our top priority,\u201d said coach Souleymane Camara.<\/p>\n

Djibril Fandje Toure is Guinea\u2019s leading goal-getter with six goals and a golden boot at the African qualifiers. The youngest side in this competition needs to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Times of India – MARGAO, They\u2019ve been the talking point everywhere. Not just in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":29325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,170,86,110,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-u17","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup","category-c14-youth-teams"],"views":2541,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324","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=29324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}