{"id":35497,"date":"2019-02-17T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=35497"},"modified":"2019-02-17T08:00:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T16:00:22","slug":"branko-ivankovic-plays-down-favorites-tag-in-irans-hazfi-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/02\/17\/branko-ivankovic-plays-down-favorites-tag-in-irans-hazfi-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Branko Ivankovic plays down \u2018favorites\u2019 tag in Iran\u2019s Hazfi Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Persepolis coach Branko Ivankovic has played down his team favorites\u2019 tag in Iran\u2019s Hazfi Cup.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Reds will host Padideh on Monday in Tehran\u2019s Azadi Stadium in the quarter-finals round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The winners of the match will face Sepahan in Isfahan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are not favorites to win the title not because we don\u2019t want to win the match. Hazfi Cup is different with the league and it\u2019s so unpredictable,\u201d Ivankovic said in the pre-match news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIran\u2019s first division team Damash have advanced to the final match by beating league team Saipa and it shows that you should not take nothing for granted in Hazfi Cup. There is tough task ahead because we need to beat powerhouse teams Padideh and Sepahan to reach the final match,\u201d the Croat added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPersepolis are going to win the title and will do our best. However, we feel the pressure because of league\u2019s time table. I don\u2019t want to criticizes the organizers but I think the schedule has gone against us. Persepolis have cooperated with the Iran Football League Organization. When our players were called up for national duty we met Paykan in the league and Sepidrood in Hazfi Cup,\u201d Ivankovic concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hazfi Cup is the Iranian football knockout cup competition, run by the Iranian Football Federation. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The competition was founded in 1975 and Esteghlal are the most successful club with seven titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Persepolis have claimed the title five time.<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, Persepolis coach Branko Ivankovic has played down his team favorites\u2019 tag&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":35498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,164,136,172,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-ipl","category-iran-first-division","category-persepolis","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":1024,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35497","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=35497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35499,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35497\/revisions\/35499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}