{"id":53618,"date":"2025-07-11T11:06:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=53618"},"modified":"2025-07-11T11:06:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:06:24","slug":"sa-pinto-ive-been-waiting-3-years-to-return-to-esteghlal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2025\/07\/11\/sa-pinto-ive-been-waiting-3-years-to-return-to-esteghlal\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00e1 Pinto: I\u2019ve been waiting 3 years to return to Esteghlal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ifpnews.com &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Portuguese football coach Ricardo S\u00e1 Pinto has officially returned to Iran&#8217;s Esteghlal FC after a three-year wait.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking at his unveiling ceremony on Wednesday, S\u00e1 Pinto expressed his joy at being back in Iran, calling the country \u201cbeautiful\u201d and Esteghlal \u201cone of the few places that truly felt like home\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy to come back, but thanks to the board members, it happened\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fans have shown incredible support and loyalty to me, the club, and the players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>S\u00e1 Pinto acknowledged the difficult conditions in Iran but voiced hope for lasting peace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI came to finish the dream I couldn\u2019t complete last time\u201d, he added,.<\/p>\n<p>The Portugese football coach further underlined the need for unity and for strengthening the team, saying, \u201cIf we stay united, we will win\u2026and win everything\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ifpnews.com &#8211; TEHRAN, Portuguese football coach Ricardo S\u00e1 Pinto has officially returned to Iran&#8217;s Esteghlal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":53619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,84,186,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-esteghlal","category-c47-featured-news","category-leagues-clubs","category-persian-gulf-pro-league"],"views":2526,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618","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=53618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53620,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618\/revisions\/53620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}