{"id":45445,"date":"2022-04-03T07:32:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-03T14:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=45445"},"modified":"2022-04-03T07:32:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-03T14:32:35","slug":"iran-manager-fires-england-a-world-cup-warning-ahead-of-doha-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2022\/04\/03\/iran-manager-fires-england-a-world-cup-warning-ahead-of-doha-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran manager fires England a World Cup warning ahead of Doha opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Sun – LONDON, Iran boss Dragan Skocic has warned Gareth Southgate: \u201cI know we can beat you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Croatian, who will take inspiration from his homeland\u2019s\u00a0World Cup\u00a0semi-final win over\u00a0England\u00a0in 2018, has told his players they will NOT be in the squad for Qatar if they do not believe it, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asia\u2019s leading team will\u00a0meet Southgate\u2019s Three Lions for the first time\u00a0in the second game of this winter\u2019s World Cup, at the Khalifa International Stadium, with\u00a0a 1pm UK kick-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

England have played, and lost, there before \u2014 a 1-0 friendly defeat to Brazil in 2009 when\u00a0Wayne Rooney\u00a0was captain for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Skocic insists: \u201cThere is no reason we should not think we can beat England. Why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRemember, I am Croatian, so I know we can beat England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople might look at the game and say Iran beating England would be one of the greatest shocks in the history of the World Cup. OK. They can think that. But football is unpredictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are not playing 15 games, we are playing one game. And anything can happen in one game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran are ranked 21st by Fifa, 16 places below England, and their squad includes ex-Brighton\u00a0man Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Porto\u2019s Mehdi Taremi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skocic added: \u201cMaybe we\u2019d have preferred not to play England in the first game but it is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe  are ready to play any time, any team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course they believe they can beat England and qualify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They must believe it. Because I believe it and I have already transferred this to the players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo they must believe it. And if they don\u2019t believe it, they are not for this level of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skocic suggested Iran\u2019s desire is to make a point on behalf of their countrymen in a group that also sees the \u2018mother of all battles\u2019 against the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said: \u201cSometimes in Europe, the Asian teams are under-appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut we have a lot of players who are playing in Europe and also they can fight, with total respect for others, but they can fight to get through and qualify from this group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople will also try to say we know conditions in Qatar better and that will be an advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the real advantage we have is that we have a lot of players who will be in their second or third World Cup. We are ranked No\u200a1 in Asia but this is not important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is important is that we have our best players fit. And I know we have the spirit of the  Iranian people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means so much for these boys to play for their country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sun – LONDON, Iran boss Dragan Skocic has warned Gareth Southgate: \u201cI know we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":45446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,92,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":2023,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45445","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=45445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45447,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45445\/revisions\/45447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}