{"id":31821,"date":"2018-05-12T13:57:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T20:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31821"},"modified":"2018-05-12T13:57:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T20:57:54","slug":"mozafar-this-is-the-best-moment-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/05\/12\/mozafar-this-is-the-best-moment-of-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozafar: This is the best moment of my life"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC -BANGKOK, Victorious Islamic Republic of Iran head coach Shahrzad Mozafar revealed her delight at winning the AFC Women\u2019s Futsal Championship 2018, labeling the success a crowning accomplishment in her life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Iranians were magnificent in the final. Scoring five goals in the second half to blow Japan away with a 5-2 win.It was their second successive title, but the first under Mozafar\u2019s tutelage, and she shared her joy at taking her country to the top of the Asian women\u2019s futsal mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so happy at this moment. Actually, I\u2019ve been waiting for this moment for many years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the best moment of my life.\u201dAfter producing a string of impressive displays and winning every match on the road to the decider, Iran\u2019s performance on the final stage was their best in the eyes of their mentor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was the best performance of our team,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final is always a really unique match. The players are stressed and you have to control it, so I want to thank all of my assistants and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old also revealed the detail of her preparation for a match against a Japanese side which bore little resemblance to the one that won silver at last year\u2019s Asian Indoor Games, where Iran finished third.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past years we have had several matches with Japan, but in every tournament they have a different team,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan were so different from 2015 and also from the 2017 Asian Indoor Games in Turkmenistan.<\/p>\n

We could see some new players and new staff. We knew that this was a new team and that something had changed in them.\u201cI think their performance was fantastic in the semi-final against Thailand. We focused on their big two matches against China and against Thailand, and they had a lot of set play tactics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so ready for that, and we were also ready for the power play. I think it was a really brilliant performance from our defence in this match. We we were able to score five goals because of how well we defended in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201dMozafar congratulated tournament MVP Fereshteh Karimi and prolific goal scorers Sara Shirbeigi and Fatemeh Etedadi, but reserved special acclaim her consistently outstanding goalkeeper Farzaneh Tavasoli (pictured below).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Farzaneh is the best goalkeeper in Asia,\u201d she said.\u201cIn 2015 and also at this tournament she has been brilliant, and she also deserves a trophy for her performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Mozafar basked in the joy of victory, Japan head coach was left to rue his side\u2019s defeat.The East Asians arguably had the better of the first half, but couldn\u2019t make it count on the scoreboard, which Kenichiro Kogure acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first half we had a lot of chances but we couldn\u2019t score,\u201d he said.\u201cWe didn\u2019t have much time (before the tournament) for preparation and for a lot of our players this is their first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former AFC Futsal Championship-winning player also spoke of the difference between domestic futsal and the highest level of the Asian game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Japan the national futsal league just started last year so it\u2019s a different environment between playing in Japan at an Asian tournament,\u201d said the 38-year-old\u201cIn this tournament one mistake can change the result of the match, so I need the players to overcome this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC -BANGKOK, Victorious Islamic Republic of Iran head coach Shahrzad Mozafar revealed her delight at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,88,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31821","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":1021,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31821","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=31821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31823,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31821\/revisions\/31823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}