The 26-year-old Mohebbi was picked to replace Taremi in the starting line-up, scoring the equaliser that sparked Iran\u2019s comeback win at the Education City Stadium, with the FC Rostov player eager to share how his teammate motivated him.
\n\u201cI want to thank Mehdi Taremi, who is not only one of the best in Iran but one of the best in Asia,\u201d said Mohebbi.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe talked with me for about half an hour because he wanted to help bring out my best qualities. This showed the union that we have within this national team.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial thank you to (head coach) Amir (Ghalenoei) and the staff for giving confidence and belief to me. Also the medical and masseuse team for the recovery that enabled us to perform this well after the short time from the win over Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mohebbi came off the bench in Iran\u2019s earlier four matches but Taremi\u2019s red card against Syria meant a start for him against four-time champions Japan. <\/p>\n
His goal in the 55th minute, off a smart pass from Sardar Azmoun, was not significant only for the match but also because it was the first goal Iran have ever scored against Japan at the AFC Asian Cup, with Team Melli unable to find a way through in four previous meetings at the continental showpiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy for the win and the performance. This match highlights the high quality within Asian football. I want to thank my teammates, everyone in the stadium and everyone back home. <\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can continue this form to become champions of Asia so that we can make all Iranian fans proud and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran will play Qatar in the semi-finals on Wednesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 26-year-old Mohebbi was picked to replace Taremi in the starting line-up, scoring the equaliser that sparked Iran\u2019s comeback win at the Education City Stadium, with the FC Rostov player eager to share how his teammate motivated him. \u201cI want to thank Mehdi Taremi, who is not only one of the best in Iran but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":937959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-937952","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\/937952","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=937952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/937959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=937952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=937952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=937952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}