{"id":31769,"date":"2018-05-08T12:52:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T19:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31769"},"modified":"2018-05-08T14:33:45","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T21:33:45","slug":"asias-futsal-superstar-fereshteh-karimi-eyeing-a-second-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/05\/08\/asias-futsal-superstar-fereshteh-karimi-eyeing-a-second-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Asia\u2019s futsal superstar Fereshteh Karimi eyeing a second title"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – BANGKOK, Three years after her dazzling performances helped the Islamic Republic of Iran become the AFC Women\u2019s Futsal Championship\u2019s inaugural champions, Fereshteh Karimi remains a force to be reckoned with.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After contributing six goals, including the winner in the final, and being voted the tournament\u2019s Most Valuable Player in the 2015 edition, Karimi has resumed her outstanding form in Thailand with back to back player of the match awards.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old was outstanding in her side\u2019s impressive victories over Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, scoring four goals as Iran advanced to the quarter-finals with imperious ease.<\/p>\n

Spectacular futsal and continental silverware in 2015 made the Karimi and her teammates household names in their home country, and the prodigy from the south of Tehran sees the buzz surrounding team as a source of motivation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter winning the 2015 championship we became known well in our country,\u201d she revealed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe big TV shows in Iran invited us, which allowed the people to get to know us well and I was really satisfied with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes us stronger to know that our people expect us to win matches and be the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fereshteh\u2019s national team head coach Shahrzad Mozafar confirmed there was a sharp rise in interest in the national team following their success in Malaysia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think winning (AFC Women\u2019s Futsal) Championship in 2015, was a big step for people to know that this team are champion athletes,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, even for people in Iran who aren\u2019t able to watch Fereshteh play, she is really well known because people follow the news about the team and see videos on the internet. <\/p>\n

\u201cFereshteh and some of the other players are really quite famous now, but to me, all of the players in my team are the MVP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having found the back of the net a remarkable 23 times in their first two matches, Karimi and her teammates look as likely as anyone to lift the trophy on May 12 – and that\u2019s precisely what she is aiming for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came here to defend our title,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team so far has been very strong. We are missing about half the players we had in 2015, and we have some new young players who are experiencing this tournament for the first time. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the players who are no longer in the team were the most experienced players, so the new players are trying to cover for their qualities.\u201d <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s performances so far have hardly carried the hallmarks of an inexperienced side, but they may well face a tougher test against an improving China PR side in Wednesday\u2019s quarter-final.<\/p>\n

Hu Jie\u2019s side gave 2015 finalists Japan a competitive battle in their 6-4 group stage loss on Monday, and Karimi is expecting a similarly difficult encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know China because we had the experience against them last year,\u201d she said, referring to Iran\u2019s 5-1 win at the Asian Indoor Games in Ashgabat.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also know them because we had friendly matches against them in Tehran around a month ago,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know them well, we regard them as a good team and we\u2019ll need to do our best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – BANGKOK, Three years after her dazzling performances helped the Islamic Republic of Iran…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":31770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,88,86,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c15-futsal","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-womens"],"views":1233,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31769","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=31769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31771,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31769\/revisions\/31771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}