Iran won its first match last week 2-1 over Iraq and its second match Saturday 1-0 over North Korea.
Reuters described the North Korea match as “a largely uninspired game, riddled with mistakes from both sides, who largely canceled each other out in a tedious midfield war of attrition.” It said Iran was “the better team throughout but their midfield fulcrum of Javad Nekounam and Pejman Nouri rarely found the right pass.”
In the end, it was forward Karim Ansari-Fard who scored the winning goal in the 63rd minute, catching the North Korean goalkeeper wrong footed. And that was a rare occasion where Nekounam and Nouri were in control and Nouri passed to Ansari-Fard who was unguarded.
Iran had a reason for lackadaisical play. The team was riddled with the flu. Coach Afshin Ghotbi replaced four players who had started in the first game. One of the new starters was Ansari-Fard.
Andranik Teymourian, normally one of the team stars, was so sick he wasn’t even suited up for the game. The sick players had three days to try to clear their heads before the final elimination round game Wednesday against the UAE. But that game only determined whether Iran finished first or second—and the two top teams in each group advance. More important is that all the players be fit for the match Saturday, January 22, Iran’s first match of the knock-out, eight-team round.
The Associated Press said that in the first half of the game last Saturday, “The speedy, tenacious North Koreans frustrated Iran’s attempts to attack, but did little to attempt to score themselves.”
Ghotbi, who was previously on the South Korean coaching staff, said of the North Koreans, “They defend with numbers; they are very well organized; they are fast.… You have to be patient.” He said, “I told my players at halftime to step up the pace and we circulated the ball faster and found the space to create the goal.”
Ghotbi acknowledged his team did not look awe-inspiring despite the win. “Iran is capable of playing much better football, and I think we’ll show that in the coming matches,” he said.
North Korea really only had a few scoring chances, one in the dying seconds of the game when Hong Yong-Jo, who plays professionally in Russia, fired from close range but hit the bar and missed the equalizer.
Each team had a free kick from a threatening field position in the first 10 minutes of the game, but neither could score.
At 28 minutes, Ansari-Fard trapped a long ball in the box and punched it into the net—but the linesman disallowed the goal and Ansari-Fard instead ended up with a yellow card for touching the ball.
The Asian Cup play in this round isn’t drawing a lot of fans. Iran’s match against Iraq drew 10,478 while the game against North Korea saw only 6,488 people in the stands.