Shahrzad Mozafar

PLDC – Iran head coach Shahrzad Mozafar is wary of the challenge posed by China in Wednesday’s AFC Women’s Futsal Championship 2018 quarter-final.

Fourteen goals against Turkmenistan and nine more against Uzbekistan showed Iran remain a team of outstanding quality, but Mozafar has been impressed with what she has recently seen from her Chinese opponents.

“From the two friendly matches with China in Iran, we could see that China really improved from the (2017) Asian Indoor Games. That was obvious,” Mozafar told the-AFC.

“I think that China is a new power in Asian futsal, and in the future we will see a lot more of this team. I believe that China is a very good team with powerful and skilful players and we should be careful and clever about our match.”

The 47-year-old reported no injury concerns among her playing staff, but urged her charges to remain cautious of the cutthroat nature of knockout futsal.

"We are so happy that we qualified in first place, and we are happy to have all of our players safe and sound for the Knockout Stage,” she said, before adding “In the Knockout Stage, every game is like a final so we should never underestimate any teams.”

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