{"id":57040,"date":"2024-02-06T17:47:17","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T17:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/iran-stars-facing-last-dance-in-asian-cup-semi-finals-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-02-06T17:47:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T17:47:17","slug":"iran-stars-facing-last-dance-in-asian-cup-semi-finals-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/iran-stars-facing-last-dance-in-asian-cup-semi-finals-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran stars facing ‘last dance’ in Asian Cup semi-finals | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nDOHA:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said several of his ageing stars are facing “the last dance” as they prepare to meet hosts and holders Qatar in Wednesday’s Asian Cup<\/a> semi-final.<\/p>\n

Iran are trying to lift the trophy for the first time since 1976 and reached the last four after beating pre-tournament favourites Japan 2-1.<\/p>\n

South Korea or Jordan await the winners in Saturday’s final.<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei will on Wednesday welcome back Mehdi Taremi from suspension after the Porto striker was sent off in Iran’s last-16 win over Syria on penalties.<\/p>\n

Taremi is 31 and could be playing at his last Asian Cup, with team-mates Saman Ghoddos, Sardar Azmoun and Alireza Jahanbakhsh all of similar age.<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei urged them to “use the opportunities that you have (left)”.<\/p>\n

“For some of the players, maybe it will be the last dance,” said the coach on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“We are standing at a very sensitive part of history — we have a very good chance to make history for Iranian football and the Iranian people.<\/p>\n

“We have to use the opportunity and give everything to beat Qatar and reach the final.”<\/p>\n

Iran came roaring back from a goal down in the quarter-finals to beat Japan.<\/p>\n

They won it with a 96th-minute penalty after Iran’s<\/a> relentless attacking unsettled the Japanese defence.<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei urged his players to “forget about Japan” and focus on 2019 champions Qatar.<\/p>\n

“We have to be even more concentrated than we were against Japan and we have to cover even more distance,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I hope we can reach our first final in almost 50 years. I have big belief in our players that they can do this.”<\/p>\n

Like Iran, Qatar breezed through the group stage with three wins. They then beat Palestine inside 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

But they had to go to extra time and penalties to see off Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals, and coach Tintin Marquez said the semi-final will be “a complex game”.<\/p>\n

“We are one step away from the final for the second time in a row,” said the Spaniard, who took over from Carlos Queiroz only a month before the tournament began.<\/p>\n

“We recognise how difficult this game will be. I didn’t know that Iran hadn’t won it for such a long time but we know we will be facing a tough team.”<\/p>\n

Iran have scored 10 goals at the tournament so far and can call on Europe-based attackers such as Taremi, Feyenoord’s Jahanbakhsh and Roma’s Azmoun.<\/p>\n

Qatar have their own star player in four-goal forward Akram Afif and defender Tarek Salman said they will not fear reputations.<\/p>\n

“They have stars who play in European leagues and this gives us an incentive to give 200 percent,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I hope we will bring joy to our fans.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOHA: Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said several of his ageing stars are facing “the last dance” as they prepare to meet hosts and holders Qatar in Wednesday’s Asian Cup semi-final. Iran are trying to lift the trophy for the first time since 1976 and reached the last four after beating pre-tournament favourites Japan 2-1. South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/iran1707224548-0\/iran1707224548-0.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}