In his second stint as head coach of Iran, Ghalehnoei repeated what he did in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup by guiding his side to a winning start to the tournament with the 60-year-old paying tribute to the depth of his squad.
“Most of the time the first match in the tournament is difficult,” said Ghalehnoei. “We’re happy with the result but not the performance. We scored early and that made things easy for us.
“We can be happy just one night but after that we have to start thinking about Hong Kong. We have to think every match is like a final,” he added.
“We have a very good squad where the quality is about the same. I choose my starting line-up based on my training, opponents and tactics.
“You can see how Karim (Ansarifard) and (Mehdi) Ghaedi performed. Even those that came on did well, so it’s just proof that we don’t have a first or second team,” he added.
It was Ansarifard who got the goals flowing for Team Melli with his strike after just two minutes, the fastest Iran have scored in an AFC Asian Cup match since Hossein Ali Kalani’s goal against Myanmar in 1968.
It was followed by further efforts from Shojae Khalilzadeh and Ghaedi before Palestine pulled one back just before half-time through Tamer Seyam, however, experienced forward Sardar Azmoun killed any hope of a comeback with the fourth in the second half.