{"id":31800,"date":"2018-05-11T13:45:08","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T20:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31800"},"modified":"2018-05-12T14:00:33","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T21:00:33","slug":"winning-the-final-now-all-that-matters-for-ir-irans-mozafar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/05\/11\/winning-the-final-now-all-that-matters-for-ir-irans-mozafar\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning the final now all that matters for IR Iran\u2019s Mozafar"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – BANGKOK, Islamic Republic of Iran head coach Shahrzad Mozafar says substance, not style is at the forefront of their push for a second successive title in Saturday\u2019s AFC Women\u2019s Futsal Championship 2018 final against Japan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The defending champions have been all but untouchable in Bangkok, scoring 32 goals in four matches, with a briefly defiant China PR the only side to issue a serious challenge to their dominance.<\/p>\n

But despite the sheer weight of goals in their campaign, and the style in which they have been scored, Mozafar said getting the job done was her only focus in the final.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thinking only about winning in the final,\u201d said the 48-year-old.\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how many we score, I\u2019m not thinking about the extent of the result, I\u2019m just thinking about winning, that\u2019s it. The final game is a very special game and we have to be really careful and clever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran beat Japan 1-0 in the final in the inaugural final in Malaysia three years ago, with tournament MVP Fereshteh Karimi scoring the decisive goal and Farzaneh Tavasoli making a number of key saves.<\/p>\n

Both players have been outstanding again in Bangkok, with able support from the likes of nine-goal top scorer Fatemeh Etedadi and Sara Sirbeigi.They all played a role In Mozafar\u2019s side\u2019s racing to a 4-0 half-time lead in their semi-final win over Vietnam, but the tactician insisted she remained focused on closing the game out rather than resting key players in the latter stages.<\/p>\n

\u201cA semi-final match is so important by itself. We have a day of rest, so I paid no attention to managing players before the final, because this match was so important,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou saw in the second half that Vietnam got back into the contest and played the game. It was not easy and we can\u2019t be deceived by the result just because we won 5-0.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhile many of her players have been Asian champions before, winning the title would be a first for Mozafar, with Forouzan Soleimani at the helm when Iran lifted the trophy in 2015.<\/p>\n

IR IRAN: ROAD TO THE FINAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Group D: 14-0 Turkmenistan<\/p>\n

Group D: 9-2 Uzbekistan<\/p>\n

Quarter-final: 4-2 China PR<\/p>\n

Semi-final: 5-0 Vietnam<\/p>\n

\n
<\/picture><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – BANGKOK, Islamic Republic of Iran head coach Shahrzad Mozafar says substance, not style…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,88,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c15-futsal","category-womens"],"views":606,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31800","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31824,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31800\/revisions\/31824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}