{"id":35703,"date":"2022-01-29T20:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-29T15:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pni.net.pk\/en\/?p=35703"},"modified":"2022-01-29T16:31:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T11:31:29","slug":"manchester-united-player-zidane-iqbal-proud-of-his-pakistani-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pni.net.pk\/en\/latest-sports-news\/manchester-united-player-zidane-iqbal-proud-of-his-pakistani-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal &#8216;proud&#8217; of his Pakistani heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Manchester \u2013 January 29 (ONLINE): Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal, who also has Pakistani and Iraqi roots, made his international debut on Thursday as he played for the Iraqi side against Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Iqbal hit headlines in December when he became the first player of Manchester United who is of South Asian origin.<\/p>\n<p>Zidane Iqbal&#8217;s father belongs to Pakistan and his mother is of Iraqi origin while he himself grew up in Manchester.<\/p>\n<p>During an interview with the Manchester United website, Zidane Iqbal expressed pride and honour over his Pakistani heritage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve grown up in Manchester my whole life so I\u2019d say I\u2019m a proud Mancunian, but I\u2019m also proud of my heritage as well. I\u2019m proud of being English, Pakistani and Iraqi,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also talked about his preference to play for Iraq while being brought up in Manchester.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMe choosing to play for Iraq doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not a proud Mancunian or a proud Pakistani. I just feel this is the right opportunity for me as a player, the right step in my career and an honour, but it doesn\u2019t take away the fact that I\u2019m a Mancunian and a Pakistani as well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Zidane Iqbal further said, \u201cI feel that this is the right decision for me in my career. It\u2019ll be such an honour to represent Iraq. My family is proud of me and I just feel that it\u2019ll be a forward step in my career, playing in the World Cup qualifiers, in big games. It\u2019ll be a massive honour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manchester \u2013 January 29 (ONLINE): Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal, who also has Pakistani and Iraqi roots, made his international debut on Thursday as he played for the Iraqi side against Iran. Iqbal hit headlines in December when he became the first player of Manchester [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":35704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16393],"class_list":["post-35703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-sports-news","tag-manchester-united-player-zidane-iqbal-proud-of-his-pakistani-heritage"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal &#039;proud&#039; of his Pakistani heritage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal &#039;proud&#039; of his Pakistani heritage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pni.net.pk\/en\/latest-sports-news\/manchester-united-player-zidane-iqbal-proud-of-his-pakistani-heritage\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Manchester United player Zidane Iqbal &#039;proud&#039; 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