{"id":37286,"date":"2019-08-14T17:38:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T00:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=37286"},"modified":"2019-08-14T17:38:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T00:38:16","slug":"afc-futsal-club-championship-agmk-fc-vs-mes-sungun-varzeqan-sf-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/08\/14\/afc-futsal-club-championship-agmk-fc-vs-mes-sungun-varzeqan-sf-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Futsal Club Championship: AGMK FC vs Mes Sungun Varzeqan [SF Preview]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>AFC &#8211; BANGKOK, <strong>Defending champions Mes Sungun Varzeqan and AGMK FC will both have a point to prove when they face off in the semi-finals of the AFC Futsal Club Championship Thailand 2019 on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mes Sungun were defeated 3-2 by Nagoya Oceans in their group stage meeting &#8211; the first loss the Islamic Republic of Iran side have suffered over two editions of the AFC Futsal Club Championship &#8211; and they are desperate to retain the title to make up for that loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AGMK have another reason in wanting to extend their campaign &#8211; this is the first time the Uzbekistan club have advanced to the knockout stage in four appearances and they want their dream run to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An extended run didn\u2019t look possible for AGMK when they began their campaign with a 4-1 defeat to Thai Son Nam, but the Central Asians bounced back in style to shock Iraq Al Wasat 5-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They have grown in strength, as shown in the 4-3 win over home side Port FC in the quarter-finals on Wednesday, and AGMK head coach Aleksandr Petrov praised his side\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/b4sspuvgbuhw31lwr1ep-700x393.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/b4sspuvgbuhw31lwr1ep-700x393.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/b4sspuvgbuhw31lwr1ep-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/b4sspuvgbuhw31lwr1ep-350x196.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/b4sspuvgbuhw31lwr1ep.jpg 765w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really happy with the way my team has been playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Mes Sungun is one of the best teams in Asia and we will study their performances closely and will try our best to win the game,&#8221; said Petrov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mercurial Mahdi Javid said Mes Sungun have no intention of tripping in their bid to win back-to-back title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAGMK are a strong side but we must play hard tomorrow because we have just one goal in the competition and that is to become champions again,\u201d said the 2018 Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNothing else is more important than winning the title for the second time. We must fight and win tomorrow\u2019s match and reach the final.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Javid, with four goals to his name, will lead Mes Sungun\u2019s charge together with Farhad Fakhim who also has hit the back of the net four times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They proved their worth in the quarter-final against Bank of Beirut, with Javid scoring Mes Sungun&#8217;s equaliser with just two minutes remaining on the clock and Fakhim notching the winner in extra time and both will be eager to deliver against AGMK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; BANGKOK, Defending champions Mes Sungun Varzeqan and AGMK FC will both have a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":37288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,88,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c15-futsal","category-iran-first-division"],"views":605,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37286","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=37286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37289,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37286\/revisions\/37289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}