Daughter's illness overshadows Iran coach's medal joy

FIFA - Iran's Asian Games bronze medal winning celebrations were overshadowed when coach Rene Simoes revealed his daughter had been taken ill and rushed to hospital in his native Brazil.
Simoes said that he would be heading home as soon as he could.

"It's tough for me at the moment because my daughter was in hospital," said Simoes after Iran's 1-0 win over South Korea.

"My wife did not tell me until after the game and it was awful, there were a lot of tears.

"I want to go straight back to Brazil. I will not go from Doha to Brazil because people will say the coach does not care about his team. So I will go to Tehran and then to Brazil."

Simoes, who famously took Jamaica to a debut FIFA World Cup finals appearance in in 1998, hinted that he was considering whether or not to renew his contract with the national side even with the Olympic Games just under two years away.

"Iran want to renew my contract so I am pleased," he added.

"But I can't renew it straight away because my family are always following me around wherever I go, but I can't do this to them anymore.

"I must go to Brazil, sit down and talk about it with them."

Iran went into the Games as defending champions but were knocked out in the semi-finals 2-0 by Qatar.

Korea Republic's Dutch coach Per Verbeek said his team's chances had been badly affected by not being able to call upon his best players.

"The strikers are not starters so they don't play," said Verbeek who had been at odds with the Korean Football Association over the availability of players.

"They have to play to improve. Then we have to train, train, train but we can't train because we have to conserve the players' energy."

The only goal of a disappointing bronze medal match came with just six minutes left of extra time when Adel Kolahkaj played a sweet one-two with Shic Khonakdar and then fired in a fierce drive past goalkeeper Kim Young Kwang.

It was tough on Korea Republic, who had made most of the running in the match.

The Koreans were unfortunate to be denied a penalty when Baek Ji Hoon was crudely hauled back by Iran goalkeeper Hassan Roudbarian only for Qatari referee Abdulrahman Abdou to wave away his appeals.

Kim Jin Kyu then had one shot diverted around the post by Roudbarian before the same player missed the target from a similar angle.

As Iran wilted, Baek should have finished the tie when he was put clean through on goal by Lee Chun-Soo only to fire wastefully over the bar with only the Iranian keeper to beat.

By the end of normal time, Iran had managed just three shots on goal.