China 2004 will be the best: Ivankovic

AFC - Iran's Croatian coach Branko Ivankovic believes Iran can make a real impression at the Asian Cup, China 2004 finals this summer.

"The forthcoming finals will be the best in the history of the Asian Cup,"said Ivankovic to www.footballasia.com. "It will be the best mainly because of the quality of the participating teams and for the organization.

"There are a lot of great sides like Japan, Korea Republic, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China and with big names having showed a lot of improvement recently like Qatar, Iraq, the UAE.

"Bahrain and Oman for example have improved their game over the last two years. It will be very interesting and I think everyone will enjoy it."

The Croatian boss strongly believes that his side can go into latter stages of the tournament. 

"Of course we are going to this tournament with great ambitions and hopes. We have big potential and hopefully we will qualify to the next round.

"As for our preparations for the tournament, I think we will get ready through the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. 

"We should prepare very well and I think we have to make some good results.

"I started with the team in the AFC/OFC Challenge match and I think we finished the first stage of our plan. The second stage will conclude at the end of our match against Jordan in the World Cup qualifiers and we will continue and increase our preparations for the Asian Cup finals gradually."