Iran vs. Palestine - [Match Thread] | Asian Cup 2023 | Sunday, January 14th |

[Rooyintan]

I am worried for this match.

FFIRI (in particular Mehdi Taj) solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians is well known.

Non-Football entities (in particular Sepah, Basij, Members of Parliament, Mayors, Governors and some of the clergy) interference in Iranian football and Team Melli is also evident.

Hence Team Melli coaches and players might be told to go for a draw, and do not win this match at all.

AFC as some of forum members refer to as Arab Football Confederation, might deliberately choose referees and other match officials to make calls in favor of Palestine.

[Rooyintan]

I feel like the players will enter the field in this game wearing keffiyehs.

It would be a national disgrace if they do, wearing Palestinian Keffiyeh is as bad as wearing a jersey with or waving a flag of a foreign country whether it will be that of Palestine, USA, UK, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Rep of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia, etc.

[Rooyintan]

Misagi will host the ac show from tehroon

Good. Misaghi is the venomous snake who ensured Team Melli not play Cabo Verde (66 FIFA ranked) and instead TM played Angola (116 FIFA ranked).

Misaghi is enemy of Team Melli.

[Damavand]

The winner of this group might come to goal difference. UAE are not going to take it easy on Palestine so we have make sure we score as many goals against Palestine as we can just in case we draw UAE on the last day.

As you all know if we come 2nd in the group we will end up on the other side of the bracket where we will be facing Japan before the final.

[Hosseini]

Highly doubt this. A draw would be terrible for Team Melli, GN and Taj, and they will put themselves first before the plight of the Palestinians. I actually hope Palestine gets second place and knocks of UAE (and beats them) but we need to definitely get first in this group to avoid Japan in the knockouts.

I also do not think there will be referee corruption. Referees are seriously evaluated and want to do a good job so they advance in the tournament. Each referee wants to officiate the final and if any major controversies occur that will shatter their chances. This is especially true since it is the first round of matches and referees will want to make their mark on the assignors of the tournament

I am worried for this match.

FFIRI (in particular Mehdi Taj) solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians is well known.

Non-Football entities (in particular Sepah, Basij, Members of Parliament, Mayors, Governors and some of the clergy) interference in Iranian football and Team Melli is also evident.

Hence Team Melli coaches and players might be told to go for a draw, and do not win this match at all.

AFC as some of forum members refer to as Arab Football Confederation, might deliberately choose referees and other match officials to make calls in favor of Palestine.

[milad_b]

I hope UAE lose against Palestine so we could have a relaxed game against them and play our B team. Then rest some more players against (possibly syria) in R16.

The schedule is really compact and most like it will affect us and we really need to rest some players.

Best scenario:

Iran win - Palestine - UAE lose
Iran win - Hong Kong - UAE win
Iran draw - UAE (B Team) UAE draw

R16 - Iran Win - Syria (rest players )

Quater
South Korea .....

[diz]

I am worried for this match.

FFIRI (in particular Mehdi Taj) solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians is well known.

Non-Football entities (in particular Sepah, Basij, Members of Parliament, Mayors, Governors and some of the clergy) interference in Iranian football and Team Melli is also evident.

Hence Team Melli coaches and players might be told to go for a draw, and do not win this match at all.

AFC as some of forum members refer to as Arab Football Confederation, might deliberately choose referees and other match officials to make calls in favor of Palestine.

the referee for this match is likely to be East Asian, Australian, etc. so even less likely to patry bazi the ref. Too much bias for any other Arab ref to officiate a Palestinian match.

[oracle]

I hope UAE lose against Palestine so we could have a relaxed game against them and play our B team. Then rest some more players against (possibly syria) in R16.

The schedule is really compact and most like it will affect us and we really need to rest some players.

Best scenario:

Iran win - Palestine - UAE lose
Iran win - Hong Kong - UAE win
Iran draw - UAE (B Team) UAE draw

R16 - Iran Win - Syria (rest players )

Quater
South Korea .....

The 2nd unit played second halve against b.f
will beat pal hngk uae Syria or lebn..
This is 3 match tournament for tm qf semi final
With 4 games to prep for last 3.

[oracle]

the referee for this match is likely to be East Asian, Australian, etc. so even less likely to patry bazi the ref. Too much bias for any other Arab ref to officiate a Palestinian match.

Iran vs Korea should not have Australian ksa Japan refs.
in 2015 an Australian ref paved the way for Australia to win it all by controversial calls against tm in qf....

[Hosseini]

the referee for this match is likely to be East Asian, Australian, etc. so even less likely to patry bazi the ref. Too much bias for any other Arab ref to officiate a Palestinian match.

AFC only works on nationality, bar the East Asia / West Asia games in Asian Champions League where they split the referees by region.

For Asian Cup they won't have a problem using Arab referees for Arab teams as long as they come from a different country.

[diz]

AFC only works on nationality, bar the East Asia / West Asia games in Asian Champions League where they split the referees by region.

For Asian Cup they won't have a problem using Arab referees for Arab teams as long as they come from a different country.

Still seems a bit too close for bias IMHO. For example, a Jordanian ref for Iran-Palestine will have implicit/unconscious (if not overt) bias due to Jordan's population being 65% Palestinian.

[diz]

Iran vs Korea should not have Australian ksa Japan refs.
in 2015 an Australian ref paved the way for Australia to win it all by controversial calls against tm in qf....

Agree, refs for the KO rounds should not have any skin in the game with regards to their national team's potential prospective match ups.

[Hosseini]

Still seems a bit too close for bias IMHO. For example, a Jordanian ref for Iran-Palestine will have implicit/unconscious (if not overt) bias due to Jordan's population being 65% Palestinian.

Agreed, optically it's not good but AFC doesn't care. They also use Asian referees for matches with East Asian teams against non East Asian teams, for example a South Korea referee for a Japan-Oman matchup. But I think the dynamic is different when it comes to Arab teams for sure. Pan-Arab nationalism is way different than the dynamic between Asian countries, which is much more hostile.

All this being said, a good referee should be able to do the job correctly no matter where they come from

[Hosseini]

Iran vs Korea should not have Australian ksa Japan refs.
in 2015 an Australian ref paved the way for Australia to win it all by controversial calls against tm in qf....

If I had to guess, it'll be Ilgiz Tantashev from Uzbek or Ma Ning from China, or Ahmed Al Kaf from Oman - three of the top Asian referees who are not from Australia, KSA, or Japan

But they will use the best remaining in the tournament no matter what, as long as the nationality does not match one of the teams playing

[aria32]

As you all know if we come 2nd in the group we will end up on the other side of the bracket where we will be facing Japan before the final.

Agha let’s play Japan before the final. As a TM fan, I don’t want an easy draw where we avoid SK until quarterfinal play Qatar in semi and then go and lose final to Japan. Then everyone is praising GN for taking team to final and we stay the team we are and go out in WC group stage.

I’d rather we play the more difficult teams early on, I want challenges for the team. We can’t get challenges from friendlies, we’re always drawn into the most tokhmi qualifying groups. Why are we wanting to run away from these difficult teams? What good is a 2nd place in AC if you’ve only played 1 difficult team up to the final? I am curious to hear other people’s take on this because I truly don’t understand people fixated on the ‘east draw’ path.