Persepolis trounces Qatar’s al-Gharafa 3-0

Iran’s football club Persepolis Wednesday evening beat Qatari home team al-Gharafa three to nil at al-Gharafa Stadium, ensuring its top position at Group 4 of Asian Clubs Champions League quite firmly. In this match of Group 4 in Doha the red clad players of the Turkish Head Coach of Persepolis Mostafa Denizli presented a wise and harmonious good football, crashing their Arab host with three goals to remain the top team of their group. Gholam-Reza Reza’ie scored for Persepolis in the 2nd minute, Imon Zayed in 5th minute and Javad Kazemian in the 72nd minute of the game. The Persepolis reds began the game very stormy, leading to scoring two early goals of Rea’ie and Zayed, which took the host team aback fearing another festival of goals in confrontation with Persepolis which had earlier this month beat UAE’s al-Shabab 6-1 in an away game in Tehran. Denizli’s students tried to slow down the game and keep the result by gathering at the middle one third of their own half of the field during the rest of the first half of the game, so that they would spend the rest time between the two half times as the winner. Al-Gharafa players, too, had scattered attacks against Persepolis net after releasing themselves of the shock of the red’s stormy beginning, but could not manage to conquer the Iranian guests’ goal gate during that half. During the second half the Persepolis players entered the field still with a cautious mentality and presented a defensive game, trying to keep their own goal gate shot, while organizing counterattacks to open the opponents’ goal for a third time. Denizli’s thoughts bore fruit at the 72nd minute thanks to the golden replacements of this veteran head coach. The Persepolis players at the 72nd minute launched a rapid attack on al-Gharafa’s goal gate when Javad Kazemian turned Maziar Zare’a’s nice pass into the 3rd goal for the Persepolis reds. Al-Gharafa players did not manage to create serious threats against Persepolis goal gate during the 2nd half despite running a lot, thus yielding to their team’s first loss during this season of the Asian Champion Clubs League. In this game the former captain of Tehran’s other popular team, the blue Estaqlal, was kicking for al-Gharafa, who was well contained by the defense line players of Persepolis, disabling him from putting to display his eye catching capabilities at the green field. This experienced mid-field defender gave his place to Moayyed Fazli at the 76th minute of the game, as the Brazilian head coach of al-Gharafa had decided. The new Bosnian goalkeeper of Persepolis, Asmir Advukic, shone really well particularly during the first half of the game, reminding everyone of the national Iranian team goalkeeper of Persepolis years ago, Ahmad-Reza Abdezadeh during the peak years of his success, when he was also the Persepolis goalkeeper. (Source: IRNA)