{"id":29568,"date":"2017-10-23T22:43:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=29568"},"modified":"2017-10-23T22:45:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:45:56","slug":"afc-young-team-melli-promise-a-bright-future-for-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/10\/23\/afc-young-team-melli-promise-a-bright-future-for-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA: Young Team Melli promise a bright future for Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIFA – ZURICH, Their FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 run may be over but the Islamic Republic of Iran can look forward to a future which promises to see them staying at the top of the game.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite falling 3-1 to Spain in the quarter-finals on Sunday, Iran performed admirably as they enjoyed their most successful run in the tournament in four outings.<\/p>\n

They hardly put a foot wrong in advancing to the last eight as they negotiated the group stage with a perfect record of three wins before seeing off Mexico, semi-finalists in the last three editions of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, in their last-16 showdown.<\/p>\n

Their group stage wins included a 4-0 whitewash of football giants Germany and despite not producing their best in the loss to European champions Spain, coach Abbas Chamanian had reason to feel positive.<\/p>\n

“I’m really happy that we got to play five games. It’s been an amazing experience for the players and the coaching staff. <\/p>\n

“We can already start harnessing this generation with a view to the future,” said Chamanian as he reflected on a campaign which had also seen Iran beat Guinea (3-1) and Costa Rica (3-0).<\/p>\n

Iranian football is at a high and the U-17 squad have huge shoes to fill going forward.<\/p>\n

The senior Team Melli are preparing for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, having sealed qualification in style, but Iran must already start preparing for the future.<\/p>\n

A future in which the U-17 squad is expected to play a prominent role, which Chamanian believes is very much within their reach.<\/p>\n

Despite their young age, the players displayed a high level of maturity and were not overawed by the occasion.<\/p>\n

The partnership of Allahyar Sayyad and Younes Delfi upfront was one of the best in the tournament and the duo look set to lead Iran’s charge in the coming years.<\/p>\n

Their relationship off the pitch is also good and this can only mean one thing – goals on the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing each other\u2019s strengths helps us to work well together,\u201d said Delfi (pictured above, right) after Iran beat Germany.<\/p>\n

Sayyad (pictured above, left) said the fact that they spend a lot of time together has helped their partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always go through the details one more time and don\u2019t like to leave anything to chance,\u201d said Sayyad.<\/p>\n

This attention to detail is undoubtedly the reason behind Iran’s run to the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 and with players of this quality coming through the ranks, Team Melli can confidently look forward to a bright future. <\/p>\n

Sources: FIFA.com \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIFA – ZURICH, Their FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 run may be over but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":29569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,170,93,86,110,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-u17","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup","category-c14-youth-teams"],"views":3391,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29568","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=29568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}