PFDC - Head coach Branko Ivankovic,
showed his happiness about his team's championship in Morocco two weeks
ago in a press conference yesterday.
"It was not an easy tournament as many of the newspapers in Iran claim.
There were two African national teams and one from South America. Looking
at our team, you saw that I was just testing the players as many good
players were not there such as Mehdi Mahdavikia, Samereh, Rezaei,
Hashemian, Mansourian, Majidi and etc., even the good players who were in
Morocco did not play much. Daei played only 48 minutes and Kavianpour less
than 40. Dinmohammadi, Hasheminasab and Rahbarifard were not even there. I
wanted to use younger players and I did. So taking all these into
consideration, I feel we did a great job because I had not seen Iran
wining a tournament of this magnitude recently so I am very happy and
proud of my boys.", said the motivated coach.
"The West Asian Cup is another great test of our young players and to
discover other talents so I invited players who had never been tried
before. I traveled to Isfahan and Ahvaz to see a couple of games before I
selected my players and I will do so again from now on. The Iranian future
team can only be found among young players and I intend to find it. It
will be a great challenge for our young players. After this tournament I
will know more about the selected young players abilities and whether to
use them in the future or not.", says Ivankovic.