{"id":31631,"date":"2018-04-29T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T00:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31631"},"modified":"2018-04-29T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T00:03:09","slug":"asian-champions-league-iranian-clubs-urged-to-win-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/04\/29\/asian-champions-league-iranian-clubs-urged-to-win-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian Champions League: Iranian clubs urged to win title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN,\u00a0<strong>Iranian clubs have been urged to win the 2018 AFC Champions League title by the country&#8217;s Youth and Sports Minister Massoud Soltanifar.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Soltanifar, who was present as Persepolis celebrated winning the 2017-18 Iran Pro League title at the Azadi Stadium on Friday, said Iranian football was perfectly placed for more success.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I congratulate the sports fraternity, especially football lovers, as this season of football was perfect and we witnessed good events.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The qualification of our national team for the FIFA World Cup 2018 and the success of our club teams in Asia is commendable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that three of our clubs have qualified for the next stage of the AFC Champions League means its time for an Iranian club to win the title,&#8221; said Soltanifar.<\/p>\n<p>Persepolis clinched their 11th league title three weeks ago after defeating Padideh FC, making it back-to-back triumphs for the Tehran based club. The 2016-17 title had ended a nine-year wait for Persepolis.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2018 AFC Champions League, Persepolis advanced to the Round of 16 as Group C winners and will face Al Jazira of the UAE.<\/p>\n<p>Esteghlal advanced as Group D winners and will face Zobahan, the third Iranian team to make the Round of 16.<\/p>\n<p>Zobahan finished runners-up in the Iran Pro League while Esteghlal were third.<\/p>\n<p>The first leg of the Round of 16 matches will be played on May 7-9 and the return leg on May 14-16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN,\u00a0Iranian clubs have been urged to win the 2018 AFC Champions League title&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":31632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,164,136,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31631","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":1230,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631","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=31631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31633,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31631\/revisions\/31633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}