{"id":37478,"date":"2019-09-10T18:26:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T01:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=37478"},"modified":"2019-09-10T19:01:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T02:01:44","slug":"asian-qualifiers-iran-ease-to-win-over-defensive-hong-kong-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/09\/10\/asian-qualifiers-iran-ease-to-win-over-defensive-hong-kong-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian Qualifiers: Iran ease to win over defensive Hong Kong [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Reuters &#8211; HONG KONG,&nbsp;<strong>Iran made a winning start to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup with a 2-0 victory over Hong Kong on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeking a sixth World Cup appearance and third in a row, Iran picked up maximum points in their Group C opener after seeing off a determined and defensive Hong Kong, whose jeering fans drowned out the Chinese national anthem before kick off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sardar Azmoun gave Iran the lead midway through the first half with a low volley into the bottom corner before Karim Ansarifard secured the win with a side-footed finish nine minutes after the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/3234054.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/3234054.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/3234054-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/3234054-350x233.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe gained three points from this match, so I think it was a positive result,\u201d said coach Marc Wilmots, who was taking charge of his first competitive game for Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe encountered a wall of defence from the Hong Kong team but we were able to score two goals and had opportunities to score more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is the beginning of our preparations and we will get better day-by-day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iran are a point behind group leaders Bahrain, who won away to Cambodia 1-0, but have played one game more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The eight group winners and the four best runners-up advance to the third round of qualification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EZzl6SKh3bU\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters &#8211; HONG KONG,&nbsp;Iran made a winning start to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":37479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,92,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":2316,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478","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=37478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37483,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37478\/revisions\/37483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}