Iran-Croatia 2006 Friendly (Video Clip)

[Paradigm]

This was a very good game for Iran, played away in Croatia I believe. Almost won the match too.

[Keano]

I remember every bit of this match, TM back then would play just beautifully, the ref clearly just didn't want Croatia to lose at home, just before the WC, that scene was not a penalty, and the Croatian player actually hit poor Mirzapour with his knee. Not to mention that Borhani's goal was falsely overruled for offside while he was clearly onside before he received the ball.

LOL back then our ego was ridiculously up above everything else (Including our logic) we thought we could conquer the world and beat many world class teams!

Anyhow thanks for sharing the video, good old days, brought back some memories!

[Paradigm]

As much as Dr. Doom would disagree with me, Branko was the coach who got the best results for Iran compared to anytime in the past 30 years:

Gold Asian Games 2002
Bronze Asian Cup 2004
WC Qualification 2006
West Asian Games Gold in between

Iran has not won anything at all, not even an Asian Bronze since 2006.

On top of that as this match shows, he had put together a good team composed of legionnaires who he brought back in or continued to invite (Hashemian, Zandi, Rahman Rezaie) and new players he had discovered (Shojaie, Nekounam, Nosrati, Andranik, Jabbari, Borhani, Kaabi, Nikbakht, Navidkia, Mobali, etc.) Karimi and Mahdavikia won the Asian player of the year award in 2003 and 2004 back to back under Branko's reign with team melli.

I was not a huge Branko fan in 2006 and called for his resignation after the poor display at the World Cup, but looking back now, it becomes more clear his work was more result-oriented than most any other head coach. One might be able to dedicate the poor team performance in the 2006 tournament to internal conflicts between certain key players and also the adverse political climate for Iran in Europe which resulted after A-N's election to office in 2005.

[dokhtar92irooni]

we also had better players back then

[Saam]

Yea but we had garbage like rezaei and mirzapour at the back, look at that missed clearance by Rezaei for Croatia's goal. Even a high school player wouldn't do that

[yashar_fasihnia]

yadesh bekheyr, the days when we actually knew wat we were doing on the field.

[KasraKhan]

Yea but we had garbage like rezaei and mirzapour at the back, look at that missed clearance by Rezaei for Croatia's goal. Even a high school player wouldn't do that

Come on Saam jan, Rezaei was not garbage for Iranian standards. Sure, he messed up on that goal, but Rezaei back then is better than Aghili and Hosseini today, combined.

Let's not forget the guy played in the Serie A for several years, a league known for their defensive astuteness.

[rugs]

I watched this match with a bunch of Croatians. Iran was by far the better team that day. Borhani had a great goal, was in great form and Branko threw that all away by not playing him in the WC.

That last minute foul that led to the penalty was BS.(from what i remember)

[Saam]

Come on Saam jan, Rezaei was not garbage for Iranian standards. Sure, he messed up on that goal, but Rezaei back then is better than Aghili and Hosseini today, combined.

Let's not forget the guy played in the Serie A for several years, a league known for their defensive astuteness.

He was even worse than this in the World Cup. He is the kind of defender that crumbles under pressure. He even made our defense fall apart in that match against Oman in AC 2004. He had no composure and was psychologically very weak. In my opinion Golmohammadi was better than him.

[Kaiser Amir]

LOL back then our ego was ridiculously up above everything else (Including our logic) we thought we could conquer the world and beat many world class teams!

That was mainly thanks to a bunch of TRASH / JOURNALISTS / DALAL who turned their keyboards into rifles, aimed at Ivankovic and fired at full force after the croat refused to give in to pressure and add Ghotbi to his staff for the World Cup.

As soon as that happened, sites like footballmedia.net were created over night and blood-sucking vampires like Pejman Nozad and Kaveh Mahjoob started promoting their idiotic ideas like "Iran should finish ahead of either Mexico / Portugal and reach the 2nd round".


Vatan-foroush people like these two ruined the atmosphere.
For them, the success of Team Melli was irrelevant, as long as it happened under the guy who DIDN'T fill their pockets.

Instead, they had the time of their life during Ghotbi's era...

[Kavian]

I have the entire game on tape!
I have watched it a few times.

This was one of the better games Iran played in the recent history.

[DubFreeek]

I was one of few Persian LUCKY ENOUGH to see this match live, the stadium atmosphere was really hostile, but sine I was the only Persian "fan" there beside bunch of rishoo and chadori from ambassy and some U16 kids from Iranian national karate or judo team who that time had a camp in Croatia as well, the fan "leader" of the Croatian came to me and wanted to xchange jersies with me, but since I was preparing to go to the world cup tour I didnt want to give up my Iran red jersey, so I offered him an Iranin flag which he accepted and in return I got his Croatian jersey, it was socked with sweat (yuuuuk) he said "Iran team good, Croatia coach"

good days

[DubFreeek]

oh, it just brough back all the good memories, I remember we were close to the ground, because the coachs seat were covered we couldnt see the players, but we all the time saw Chalangar (Branco's traslator) whenever Branco was instructing him that he needs to sub a player he was SPRINTING like no tomorrow to behind the goals were our players were warming up, I think he could bring us some medals if he is in our track and firld team next Olympics

Chalangar was cheered the most .. MASHALLA CHALANGAR

[DubFreeek]

This thread made me go and look back for an old blog I created for the world cup, I called it Persian Lions' Fan Club .. I didnt update it while I was in Germany for the world cup because I didnt have internet there and I was really disharted after our bitter lose to Mexico, if you want have a look here
Persian Lions' Fan Club
and here are some photos I made from the match

My Iran Fan flag, I was so upset after Iran Mexico match that I left it in the Fan Zone, I regret that

Croatian fans, it was scary to sit in front of them, imagine playing on the pitch against them

whatever

a die-hard TM fan (aka DubFreeek)

my brother and I going to the stadium

with my wife in front of the stadium


The rishoos & chadoris I was talking about

[Camran khan]

Good days, we also beat Bosnia 5-2, that was pretty good play by us aswell, except for the 2 goals, where our defenders actually screwed up, as usual
But IMO Rezaei was a better defender than Aghili/Hosseini/Nosrati.
Those 5 goals made TM look like killing machines in front of goal.