{"id":36451,"date":"2019-05-19T16:59:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T23:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=36451"},"modified":"2019-05-19T16:59:51","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T23:59:51","slug":"acl-al-ain-esteghlal-aim-to-conclude-season-on-positive-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/05\/19\/acl-al-ain-esteghlal-aim-to-conclude-season-on-positive-note\/","title":{"rendered":"ACL: Al Ain, Esteghlal aim to conclude season on positive note"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tasnim &#8211; AL AIN, <strong>Eliminated pair Al Ain and Esteghlal will aim to conclude their season on a positive note when they clash at Hazza bin Zayed Stadium on Matchday Six of the 2019 AFC Champions League Group C on Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two teams suffered a disappointing season both domestically and in Asia. Esteghlal watched their arch-rivals Persepolis walk away with the Iranian Pro League title for a third year running while they finished third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al Ain, meanwhile, is also third but has a crucial game next week against fifth-placed Al Wahda with a place in the 2020 AFC Champions League at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday\u2019s encounter is the ninth between the two Continental giants. In the previous eight match-ups, Esteghlal hold a marginal advantage with three wins, to two Al Ain victories. The last three clashes between the two teams ended in draws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Key for Al Ain will be Japanese utility player Tsukasa Shiotani who was on the scoresheet in each of the last three games against Esteghlal, the-afc.com reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The match is a special occasion for Esteghlal coach Farhad Majidi who was a key member of the Al Ain side that won the inaugural AFC Champions League title in 2003. The former Iran international striker scored in the semi-final as Al Ain overcame China PR\u2019s Dalian Shide en route to Continental glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tasnim &#8211; AL AIN, Eliminated pair Al Ain and Esteghlal will aim to conclude their&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":36452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,173,84,164,136,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-esteghlal","category-c47-featured-news","category-ipl","category-iran-first-division","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":462,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36451","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=36451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36453,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36451\/revisions\/36453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}