{"id":53270,"date":"2025-05-06T16:43:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=53270"},"modified":"2025-05-06T16:43:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:43:30","slug":"afc-womens-futsal-asian-cup-group-b-iran-v-philippines-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2025\/05\/06\/afc-womens-futsal-asian-cup-group-b-iran-v-philippines-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup: Group B – Iran v Philippines [Preview]"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFC – HOHHOT, Set to make their tournament debut, the Philippines arguably could not have asked for tougher opening opponents than the Islamic Republic of Iran as both prepare to face off in their AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup \u2122 China 2025 Group B tie on Wednesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reigning champions have won all of their 10 matches in the competition\u2019s history and will be confident of adding a third crown. Having led them to glory in the inaugural 2015 edition, Foruzan Solymani returns to helm a side with plenty of experience, with five players set to appear in their third tournament.<\/p>\n

One of them is Sara Shirbeigi, who is the competition\u2019s all-time top-scorer with 14 goals, who is optimistic about recovering from an injury setback to play her part.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we can become champions of Asia for the third consecutive time,\u201d she said. \u201cAll our goals and efforts will be focused on this. However, as you know, achieving this is challenging since teams like Japan and Thailand are strong competitors. Nonetheless, we are Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team still has weaknesses that we worked on during the recent SAT Futsal Championship in Thailand and I hope that by addressing these issues, we can lift the championship trophy for the third time and make our nation proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Philippines will certainly aim to give the Central Asians a stiff test as they continue to prepare for the inaugural FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup 2025 in November, which they have automatically qualified for as hosts.<\/p>\n

Led by Spanish head coach Rafael Rodriguez, the FILIPINA5 \u2014 recently unveiled as the team\u2019s new moniker \u2014 impressed in the Qualifiers against higher-ranked opponents to seal their first-ever berth in the Finals. <\/p>\n

While Rodriguez believes preparations have gone well, he acknowledged that Iran will pose a tough challenge, especially with key striker Katrina Guillou \u2014 scorer of four of their 10 Qualifiers goals \u2014 sidelined.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big challenge for us \u2013 they\u2019re the best team in Asia,\u201d said Rodriguez. \u201cWe\u2019re going to learn a lot from that match. We know it will be very difficult, but we\u2019re approaching it with great enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have tried to train as much as possible in the Philippines over the past month, although players have been joining gradually over the last few weeks. We played two friendly matches in the Philippines, and the rest of our preparation took place in China.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think there’s any one key player but it\u2019s true that Katrina, who couldn\u2019t be with us, brought a lot of experience. She’s also a player with a knack for scoring goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Philippines played their first women\u2019s futsal national team match in 2005, the side has only been revived in recent years and Rodriguez, in looking at the big picture, feels that being awarded hosting rights to the FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup will further boost their developmental efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe we\u2019re making progress in many areas,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to build a solid team, with a strong mentality and a clear identity. We’re improving both individually and collectively. We need to keep consolidating every step we take.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – HOHHOT, Set to make their tournament debut, the Philippines arguably could not have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":53272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,84,88,86,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-cup","category-c47-featured-news","category-c15-futsal","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-womens"],"views":1342,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53270","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=53270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53273,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53270\/revisions\/53273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}