{"id":50567,"date":"2024-02-03T01:54:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T09:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=50567"},"modified":"2024-02-03T01:56:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T09:56:34","slug":"qf-preview-ir-iran-v-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2024\/02\/03\/qf-preview-ir-iran-v-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"QF – Preview: IR Iran v Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC \u2013 Doha, Hajime Moriyasu expects his Japan side to advance to the semi-finals of the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023\u2122, just as they did in five of the last six editions of the continental showpiece.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Standing in their way at Education City Stadium on Saturday are Islamic Republic of Iran, with the Samurai Blue holding an unbeaten record against their opponents at the AFC Asian Cup (W2 D2).<\/p>\n

Moriyasu, while confident of Japan\u2019s chances, said his side will not make the mistake of underestimating Iran, despite the absence of star striker Mehdi Taremi due to suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it will be a very tough match due to the schedule but whatever the circumstances, we have to perform,\u201d said Moriyasu. \u201cI think Iran have the same number of rest days, \u00a0just that we have played less minutes. It\u2019s a match between two big teams in Asia so I\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery match we have conceded at least one goal, which is not something we want. In every game, we made mistakes and we need to adjust these small things so that we can win the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaremi may be suspended but they still have (Sardar) Azmoun as well as other attacking players who can hurt us. We have to concentrate on our defensive line to stop them but that doesn\u2019t mean that we deploy a different tactic just because Taremi isn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clash of the Asian footballing heavyweights, who share seven AFC Asian Cup title wins between them, is an equally captivating one for Iran head coach Ardeshir Ghalehnoy.<\/p>\n

Ghalehnoy\u2019s side were pushed to the limit by Syria before winning their Round of 16 tie on penalties, with recovery being the main focus for the 60-year-old former Esteghlal FC head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could have been the final but now we face off in the quarter-final,\u201d said Ghalehnoy. \u201cJapan are a very good team and now, in the knockout stage, they are showing a much better performance than they showed in the group stage<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Iran are a good team as well. We did really well against Syria. In the group stage, they only allowed four shots in the three matches but we managed to produce 11 shots against them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor tomorrow\u2019s match, we have less recovery than Japan. We could have finished the match early against Syria but we lost a lot of opportunities. We tried to make the recovery from two aspects, in terms of supplements as well as mentally.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty million people are following the result of the national team and the players know that. We will give everything for the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC \u2013 Doha, Hajime Moriyasu expects his Japan side to advance to the semi-finals of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34468,"featured_media":50569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,175,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-asian-cup","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":894,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50567","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\/34468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50573,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50567\/revisions\/50573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}