{"id":38602,"date":"2020-02-05T19:28:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=38602"},"modified":"2020-02-05T19:28:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:28:22","slug":"ipl-persepolis-esteghlal-both-ready-to-win-tehran-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2020\/02\/05\/ipl-persepolis-esteghlal-both-ready-to-win-tehran-derby\/","title":{"rendered":"IPL: Persepolis, Esteghlal both ready to win Tehran derby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iran Professional League (IPL) leaders Persepolis will face their arch rivals Esteghlal on Thursday in the Iranian capital\u2019s derby at the Azadi Stadium.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most historic club rivalries in Iran and Asia has become even hotter in this season. What\u2019s more, this week\u2019s game could have a huge say in the 2019-2020 IPL title race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Persepolis will come into the game five points clear at the top of the table after Sepahan\u2019s goalless draw against Machine Sazi two weeks ago. Esteghlal, meanwhile, are now eight points behind back in fourth spot so they realistically need to win at this game to keep their title hopes alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, 
Yahya Golmohammadi\u2019s side defeated Sanat Naft 1-0 in an impressive challenge in Abadan, thanks to a free-kick from versatile midfielder Ahmad Noorollahi. Meanwhile, Farhad Majidi\u2019s men defeated Naft Masjed Soleyman 2-1 in Tehran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reds are at their best form with seven wins in their last seven league games and nine out of nine in all competitions. Golmohammadi, head coach of Persepolis, has complete confidence in his players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a special game ahead of us. Tehran\u2019s derby is one of the most important games and one of the greatest derbies in the world. We have very good players who have always been able to make right decisions and perform well in difficult situations and big games\u201d Golmohammadi said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes in Persepolis players\u2019 mentality: \u201cThey have a strong mentality and they are born winners. I hope that we will see a good match from the both sides on Thursday so the fans can enjoy the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esteghlal, had a very poor start to their season, but they recaptured their form under their ex-coach Andrea Stramaccioni and then continued the form with his successor Farhad Majidi, the popular ex-player of the team. With Majidi on the hotseat the Blues have had three wins in a row at the AFC Champions League and IPL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Majidi pointed to the importance of the Red-Blue derby in his press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cThe match against Persepolis is important to both teams and we can\u2019t deny the game\u2019s importance,\u201d He said.
\u00a0The head coach of Esteghlal called his team \u201cthe winning team\u201d and he refused to talk about Persepolis’ strengths: \u201cThe winning team talk about their awesomeness and what they are going to do in the match. The losing team speak about what they should do against their rival.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iran Professional League (IPL) leaders Persepolis will face their arch rivals…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":38603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,173,84,92,164,136,172,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-esteghlal","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-ipl","category-iran-first-division","category-persepolis","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":737,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38602","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=38602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38604,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38602\/revisions\/38604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}