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.

The post Hamid Estili: Players for China Match Will Change appeared first on Iran News Daily.

First-half goals from Lee Dong-jun and Cho Gue-sung gave Kim Hak-bum’s side a two-goal half-time buffer, but Reza Shekari from Iran did a nine minutes effort after the interval meant the Koreans had to negotiate a difficult period in order to extend its winning start to the competition in AFC U-23 Championship.

The team’s perfect tally of six points from two matches means it is sure to advance to the knockout stage no matter what happens in Wednesday’s match against Uzbekistan, while Iran’s hopes of ending a 44-year Olympic qualification drought now weighs heavily on its final group stage fixture against China.

Iran had started the campaign with a 1-1 draw against defending champion Uzbekistan on Thursday.

Thailand 2020 also serves as a qualification to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where the top three teams, aside from host nation Japan, will represent Asia.

The 2020 AFC U-23 Championship is the 4th edition of the AFC U-23 Championship, the biennial international age-restricted football championship organized by the Asian Football Confederation for the men’s under-23 national teams of Asia. A total of 16 teams are competing in the tournament.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s U23 football team is going to hold a training camp in Qatar’s Doha before departing for the 2020 AFC U23 Championship.

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