{"id":53918,"date":"2025-09-30T18:43:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=53918"},"modified":"2025-09-30T18:43:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:43:57","slug":"ezatolahis-first-half-header-downs-al-ittihad-in-asian-champions-league-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2025\/09\/30\/ezatolahis-first-half-header-downs-al-ittihad-in-asian-champions-league-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Ezatolahi&#8217;s first half header downs Al-Ittihad in Asian Champions League [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters &#8211; JEDDAH, <strong>Al-Ittihad suffered a second straight defeat in the Asian Champions League Elite on Tuesday when Iranian midfielder Saeid Ezatolahi scored to earn Shabab Al-Ahli a 1-0 win over the struggling Saudi Pro League champions in Jeddah.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The loss for a side featuring Karim Benzema, Ngolo Kante and Fabinho came with interim boss Hassan Khalifa in charge after Laurent Blanc had been fired following Friday&#8217;s loss to Cristiano Ronaldo&#8217;s Al-Nassr in the domestic league.<\/p>\n<p>Ezatolahi netted the game&#8217;s only goal five minutes before halftime when he emerged at the far post to nod in Federico Cartabia&#8217;s corner from the right.<br \/>\nThe result leaves Al-Ittihad in 11th place in the 12-team west Asian league phase standings after two matches with the first eight finishers qualifying for March&#8217;s knockout rounds.<\/p>\n<p>The win moves Paulo Souza&#8217;s Shabab Al-Ahli onto four points, two points behind early leaders Al-Hilal from Saudi Arabia and alongside fellow Emirati sides Sharjah FC and Al-Wahda as well as defending champions Al-Ahli.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Horror start complete for Benzema &amp; Co! | Al Ittihad \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\udde6 vs Shabab Al Ahli \ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddea | Highlights ACL Elite\u2122\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GYHVEsPdMlw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters &#8211; JEDDAH, Al-Ittihad suffered a second straight defeat in the Asian Champions League Elite&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":53919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,212,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-iranian-legionnaires","category-c22-players-spotlight"],"views":1784,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53918","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=53918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53920,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53918\/revisions\/53920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}