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Concentration concerns for Afzali |
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 04:46 |
 Esfahan: Foolad Mahan Sepahan coach Hossein Afzali has demanded more concentration from his players if they are to emerge from their AFC Futsal Club Championship final clash with Al Sadd of Qatar on Friday as the historic first winners of the tournament.
Esfahan: Foolad Mahan Sepahan coach Hossein Afzali has demanded more concentration from his players if they are to emerge from their AFC Futsal Club Championship final clash with Al Sadd of Qatar on Friday as the historic first winners of the tournament.
While the Iranians have certainly been one of strongest sides at the competition they have had to recover from an early goal in three of their four games at Pirouzi Stadium.Foolad fell behind after just 30 seconds in their semi-final clash with Port Authority of Thailand on Thursday but despite a below-par performance they battled back to secure a 5-3 win and with it their place in the final.But Afzali (pictured right) acknowledged the need for his side to step up a gear against Al Sadd if they are to fulfil the home fans' expectations and walk away with the AFC Futsal Club Championship trophy.We were really surprised when we conceded first goal, he said.In futsal the first goal is very important and though we had chances after that the problem still was that we conceded an own goal and that is bad.It was a tough game.
We had analysed the Thais before the game but they had a lot of motivation.
I don't believe they played well, I believe it was my players who played badly in this game.
If you look at the goals we scored an own goal and another where we were caught off guard so I don't believe we played well at all.Foolad are the only side at the tournament able to boast a wealth of international experience with no less than eight Iran national team players in the squad.But Afzali is concerned that statistic may be having a negative affect on the players' mentality and is eager to rectify that before the game against Al Sadd.Maybe our preparation was not very good, he added.
We need to think about this before the final.I believe we have big names in our team and national team players but we underestimated them and maybe that was the reason we did not perform so well.We want to win the title of the tournament and we will give our best tomorrow.
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