DEFEATING UAE 3 TO NIL, IRAN WOULD NOW FACE IRELAND
ABU DHABI, 31 Oct. (IPS) Iran beat United Arab Emirates 3-0 in the second leg of an Asian zone World Cup playoff in Abu Dhabi Thursday and will play Ireland for a place in next year's World Cup finals on 10 November in Dublin and the return play in Tehran five days latter.
Hertha Berlin striker Ali Da’i, returned from suspension, opened the score
with a free kick seven minutes, followed by midfielder Karim Bagheri who scored
the second goal through a wheezing long range volley in the 75th minute and
Mehrdad Minavand three minutes later.
Immediately after the game ended, millions of Iranians poured in the streets in Tehran and all major and smaller cities, chanting national songs and slogans against the Islamic Republic and its lamed and unpopular leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i.
But unlike previous matches, mostly the one that saw the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Bahraini, no clashes with Police were reported.
The matches will be the first between Iran and Ireland since Ireland beat Iran 2-1 in an invitational tournament in 1972 in Recife, Brazil.
But Iran and UAE finished with 10 men. Iran had Pejman Jamshidi sent off after eight minutes by Japanese referee Toru Kamikawa and the UAE Jaleel Abdul Raham red carded eight minutes into the second half.
'It was a pretty satisfying result. I think the boys did a great job. Great in the sense that they rallied brilliantly after Pejman Jamshidi was sent off early in the match",
Miroslav Blazevic, the Croatian Head Coach of Iran team told Reuters news agency of Britain, attributing his team's victory to "a brilliant team effort."The idea was to protect the goal after he was sent off. It was not easy to beat the UAE. They played very well like they did in Tehran", he added.
'I can't blame the players. They all did a good job, but we were not lucky enough to get an early goal. We beefed up our striking force by sending Faisal Khalil upfront. The idea of having three strikers was to exploit the 10-man Iran after Pejman Jamshidi was sent off.
UAE's Dutch Coach Tini Ruijs said his team created a number of scoring chances, but did not take them.
"The plan worked, but we were distinctly unlucky not to convert the many scoring chances that we had", he said, explaining that the red card to Jaleel Abdul Rahman early in the second half worked against the UAE. ENDS IRAN DEFEAT UAE 311001