Abdulla Yusuf scored the only goal of the game at Khalifa International Stadium to take the Bahrainis into the Round of 16 as Group E winners and that means Pizzi will lock horns once again with Japan boss Hajime Moriyasu.<\/p>\n
The pair met at the 2019 edition of the continental championship when Moriyasu led his Japan team to a 1-0 victory over Pizzi\u2019s Saudi Arabia and the Argentinian knows his current side face a significant challenge to move into the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game was very positive and we deserved a better result,\u201d Pizzi said of the last 16 meeting in Sharjah in 2019. \u201cThe Japanese level is very high.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have high individual skills and potential but we have high confidence in our players, their focus and their effort and hopefully we will be able to qualify.”<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us all the games are difficult. The group stage was very difficult for us but we were able to compete, win and qualify.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course the Japan team is excellent and has experienced players who play in European leagues but we\u2019re optimistic about our group. We have high morale in our team, we have solidarity amongst us. We have great respect for all the teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bahrainis advanced with their second win of the group stage after earlier claiming a narrow win over Malaysia and Pizzi was delighted with the outcome in front of a 36,950 crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very happy to have won and we\u2019re very happy with the performance of our team,\u201d he said. \u201cWe implemented our plans, we wanted to win and we\u2019ve got the three points. Now we have to recover and think about the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan also advanced to the next phase with the result leaving Lhoussanine Ammouta\u2019s team in third place in the standings with their points total enough to take one of the consolation berths in the last 16, where they will face Iraq.<\/p>\n
Ammouta defended his decision to make five changes to his starting line-up from the team that drew 2-2 with Korea Republic as he kept one eye fixed on the knockout rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s most important is to qualify and to put in your best in the knockout stages,\u201d said the Moroccan. \u201cIt\u2019s most important to play all your cards in the knockout stages. You will have a fuller formation with the main players and the substitutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn such competitions you can\u2019t rely on one player for the whole tournament. It\u2019s everyone\u2019s right, even those on the bench, to partake in the cup. You are supposed to make changes. Our main aim was to avoid yellow cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would\u2019ve wanted us to win the three games regardless of who we are going to play in the next stage. The defeat happened. The players are not accepting of a defeat, but this is football.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abdulla Yusuf scored the only goal of the game at Khalifa International Stadium to take the Bahrainis into the Round of 16 as Group E winners and that means Pizzi will lock horns once again with Japan boss Hajime Moriyasu. The pair met at the 2019 edition of the continental championship when Moriyasu led his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":933923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-933922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afc-news","tag-afc","tag-afc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/933923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}