{"id":31077,"date":"2018-03-11T10:32:39","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T17:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31077"},"modified":"2018-03-11T10:32:39","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T17:32:39","slug":"esteghlal-want-to-remain-top-of-group-d-winfried-schaefer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/03\/11\/esteghlal-want-to-remain-top-of-group-d-winfried-schaefer\/","title":{"rendered":"Esteghlal want to remain top of Group D: Winfried Schaefer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Esteghlal coach Winfried Schaefer says that they want to stay at top of Group D.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Iranian giant will host Al Ain of the UAE in Tehran\u2019s Azadi Stadium on Matchday Four of the AFC Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>Esteghlal are top on five points, while Al Ain are now third, level with Al Rayyan on three points but separated on goal difference. Al Hilal are bottom on two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody knows tomorrow is a big game. We have a chance to remain at top of the group. I hope the Iranian fans enjoy the match. I also hope the supporters respect the rules and don\u2019t bring fireworks to the stadium,\u201d the German coach said in the pre-match news conference.<\/p>\n<p>The Malaysian referee awarded two penalties to Al Ain last week but Schaefer says their players should not put the officials under pressure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I would like to say I am so happy that I am not a referee. I know that to officiate is a very hard job. In my opinion, we have to help the referees to do their best performances,\u201d the Esteghlal coach stated.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Al Ain coach Zoran Mamic also says they expect a tough game against Esteghlal but they are determined to win the match at the Azadi Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe expect a difficult match. Esteghlal played very well last week and they got a good result in their away match. But we can defeat them if we keep confidence in our game,\u201d Mamic said.<\/p>\n<p>Mamic said they are not afraid of playing ahead of 100,000 spectators.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cAs I\u2019ve already said, we\u2019ve come here to enjoy the football,\u201d the Croat stated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEsteghlal take advantage of a good coach and several good players. They are a better team than they were last year. They have been inspired by German football but we also are a better team than we were last year,\u201d Mamic concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, Esteghlal coach Winfried Schaefer says that they want to stay at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":31078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,164,136,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-ipl","category-iran-first-division","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":1191,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31077","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=31077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31079,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31077\/revisions\/31079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}