Iran may look to utilize fresh legs, as it fights to keep its AFC U-23 Championship Thailand 2020 campaign alive against China PR at Tinsulanon Stadium on Wednesday.

The knockout stage has come early for Iran, who must beat China – and hope Uzbekistan lose to the Korea Republic in Pathum Thani – to have any chance of reaching the last eight of the competition.

A tally of one point from two matches – a 1-1 draw with Uzbekistan and a 2-1 defeat to Korea Republic – has given head coach Estili plenty to consider ahead of the clash with a Chinese side which has already been eliminated, and he believes his team’s salvation may come from a rotated starting line-up.

“It’s the most important match for us. If we want to stay here and qualify for the second round, we need to win this game. We have no other choice,” Estili told the-afc.com.

“Between two matches we have just three days, and maybe our players were a little tired, but you need 23 ready players for this competition. For the last match, Korea Republic changed many players and had a really ready team, but my players were tired in the second half,” he added.

“In this situation, we will try to use players who are not tired and can help us. It’s really important that we have enough running power throughout the match. In Iran will do our best to win using the players we have who are physically ready to face China,” Hamid Estili stated.

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Zlatko Kranjcar’s team will fly to Iraq on July 23 and play the Iraqi team on July 25 and 27 respectively.

The Iranian football team will return to Tehran on July 29 and will travel to China on Aug. 6 to hold another training camp in the East Asian country.

Iran U23 football team will also play a warm-up match with China on Aug. 9.

Iran will fly straight to Indonesia to participate at the 2018 Asian Games.

The Iranian team have been pitted against DPR Korea, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar in Group F of the 2018 Asian Games.

The U23 tournament, which allows each country to field three overage players, will see 24 teams vying for honors.

The top two teams in each group along with the four best third placed teams will advance to the Round of 16.

Men’s football will be contested on August 14 to September 1 in Jakarta and Palembang.

“I think Iran U23 football team have the potential of advancing to the 2020 Olympic Games. The Asian Games is an opportunity for us to strengthen ourselves,” Kranjcar’s told in an interview with Tasnim news agency.

“We will participate in the Asian Games with the U21 players because we have the time until 2020 Olympic Games to prepare our team with the boys who will become accustomed to our strategy. We want to book a place in the Olympic Games after 44 years,” the Croat said.

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