Jahanbakhsh says he is fit and ready to face Iraq
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Loading...Fox Sports Asia – DUBAI, Iran star Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who had missed Team Melli’s opening two matches due to injury, has declared himself fit ahead of Group D decider against Iraq in the AFC Asian Cup 2019.
Jahanbakhsh has been sidelined due to an injury since November and have missed matches for both his club Brighton & Hove Albion and country Iran over the last couple of months.
However, the 25-year-old forward has now announced that he is fit and ready to play a part in Iran’s Asian Cup campaign as they look to win their first continental title in 43 years — starting with their final group match against perennial rivals Iraq.
“Thankfully, my condition is great, and I’ve trained with the team in the past couple of days. I have no problem to play this game [against Iraq], and I am ready. It’s up to the staff to decide whether they want to use me or not,” the Iran star told the-AFC.com.
Certainly, when we started the tournament, we wanted to progress one game at a time and, thankfully, the first two games were great. This game is significant because we want to stay top of our group, and because we need the confidence that a good result will provide us,” said the star who’s team can top the group with a draw against Iraq.
The last meeting between the two sides in the Asian Cup was in the 2015 edition held at Australia where Iraq knocked out Iran in the penalty shootouts after the quarterfinal had ended in a 3-3 draw after extra time.
And that defeat is something Jahanbakhsh wants to take revenge for. “Surely, the events that occurred in that game, us being down to 10 players, and the conditions that we were faced with, made it really hard for us,” he said.
“Despite all these obstacles, we played very well against Iraq. I still think we should have qualified for the next stage, but sometimes football doesn’t smile upon us, and we were eliminated.”
“We do not want to make any mistakes this time, we want to be completely focused, and be present in this game even better than before, so we can get the best result.”
