Simoes: The Iranian nation deserved to win
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PFDC – TEHRAN, While Iran assistant coach Antonio Simoes underlined Iran’s successful team spirit in front of the media, Iran coach Carlos Queiroz, who was sent off during the qualifier against South Korea by the Singhalese referee, refused to be present at the post match press conference.
“We deserved to win this match although I confess that both teams played really well”, the 68-year-old Portuguese Simoes said according to the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) official homepage.
Furthermore the Portuguese mentioned that “we trained hard during the past two weeks to get every player mentally and physically ready for the match, and once again, I believe we deserved all three points from the match.”
Of course Simoes didn’t forget to praise the Iranian spirit by saying that “it is the Iranian nation who deserved this win. When you beat a strong team like Korea Republic with 10 players on the field, this match will stick in everyone’s mind forever.”
“We can’t divide the match into two parts where we played better and where we didn’t. Prior to the goal, we were trying to score and we were looking to make the best of every chance we had and fortunately we managed to do so. Tonight out main priority was to win the match in which we succeeded very well.”
However, his Korean counterpart, Choi Kang-hee, noticed a different balance of power during the match. “We had created many opportunities which we never used and on the other side, Iran converted their only chance into the winning goal of the night,” said Choi.
The 53-year-old former Korean national team player added: “We took the upper hand in the match, but we failed to benefit from our dominance despite having young and confident players. From the beginning of the match, we had the game under control and we even struck the post, but Iran managaed to make the best of their chance.”
“It was a difficult night for us. However, despite the defeat, I don’t believe all of our chances are gone and we still have games to make up for this one.”
