{"id":47440,"date":"2022-11-12T15:04:32","date_gmt":"2022-11-12T23:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=47440"},"modified":"2022-11-12T15:04:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T23:04:38","slug":"looking-to-impress-asian-prospects-to-keep-an-eye-out-for-at-the-2022-fifa-wc-omid-noorafkan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2022\/11\/12\/looking-to-impress-asian-prospects-to-keep-an-eye-out-for-at-the-2022-fifa-wc-omid-noorafkan\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking to impress: Asian prospects to keep an eye out for at the 2022 FIFA WC [Omid Noorafkan]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ESPN – BRISTOL, The\u00a0FIFA World Cup\u00a0has long been a platform not just for established stars to enhance their reputations, but also for young guns to burst onto the scene and make a name of themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the years, some of Asia’s brightest prospects have used the tournament as to showcase their ability, eventually gaining prominence and even earning dream moves to Europe on the back of their performances at a World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u00a0legend Hidetoshi Nakata is arguably the most famous example after he moved to\u00a0Serie A\u00a0with\u00a0Perugia\u00a0after some eye-catching displays at France 1998, while\u00a0Porto\u00a0striker\u00a0Mehdi Taremi\u00a0and\u00a0Mainz\u00a0playmaker\u00a0Lee Jae-Sung\u00a0were two who made their way over to Europe soon after the last World Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the tournament once again upon us, we look at one of five hot prospects hailing from Asia to keep a close eye on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omid Noorafkan (Iran)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In recent years,\u00a0Iran\u00a0have had no shortage of players that have proven to be good enough to make the grade in Europe — and\u00a0Omid Noorafkan\u00a0could be the next to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Taremi,\u00a0Sardar Azmoun\u00a0and\u00a0Alireza Jahanbakhsh\u00a0to name but a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Akram, Noorafkan is far from a raw talent at the age of 25, and he did previously briefly feature in the Belgian top flight with\u00a0Charleroi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now back in Iran with\u00a0Sepahan, Noorafkan has established himself as one of the Persian Gulf Pro League’s most-consistent performers, while also proving to be a handy asset with his versatility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally adept at left-back and in a defensive midfield role, Noorafkan may not be an automatic starter in what will be a formidable starting XI that Team Melli coach Carlos Queiroz will be fielding, but he is a player capable of making an impact even as an option off the bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ESPN – BRISTOL, The\u00a0FIFA World Cup\u00a0has long been a platform not just for established stars…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":47441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,93,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":1253,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47440","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=47440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47443,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47440\/revisions\/47443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}