AFC U-23 CHAMPIONSHIP-TEHRAN

[Bi-honar]

Plastic fans? Firstly, it's the Nowruz holidays, which means many people are spending times with their family or are on vacation. Secondly, even if people are on holiday, there are those who still have to work for a living given the conditions in Iran. Whether the match is free or not, some people do not have the means the means to get to Azadi stadium.

These games are poorly advertised to the public and little to no attention is ever given to our youth teams. Many club games with senior-level players barely have any attendance and now you want people to show up to watch our Olympic team against Nepal.

For many people in Iran, as much as they love football, it is at the tail end of their priorities. They don't have the luxury or the time to go to every match. It's not like PFDC where people have the means to track the team to their hotel, hang out with them, and purchase every merchandise that comes out.

I agree with everything you say Nader jaan, but I was just comparing us to Afghan fans in this case.

They are also celebrating Norouz, are in the working class and in an even lower income bracket and would certainly not have seen more advertising for their game by the IFF than Iranian fans did for our game.

It just seems counter-intuitive and embarrassing really that they'd have 6 times more fans than us at the their game - never mind in our country.

[khodam]

Talk about "plastic fans"... 3500 (official attendance with some estimates as high as 7,000) people turned up at the Afghanistan-Palestine game in Shahid Dastgerdi stadium (guessing mostly Afghans) and only 650 Iranians turned up at Azadi to watch TM Omid - with free admission!!!

Absolute shame. No wonder Mottahari said that "maybe people feel that we're playing at home because the games are in Azadi, but if they don't show up to the stadium we are going to feel less at home than if we were playing outside Iran".

I really don't know how people in Iran can show their dissatisfaction with IFF and the rest of the fat cows in sports. In Iran the public opinion doesn't mean much. It was only a month or so ago were 20,000 Iranians chanted for their team 20,000 km away from home.

I am not another CQ die hard supporters, but the IRI and IFF should respect the wishes of millions of his fan. They feel helpless and in that context we should expect them to show their dismay by not attending.

I feel Iran football is set to fail by design. And that is pretty sad.

[K. Nader]

I agree with everything you say Nader jaan, but I was just comparing us to Afghan fans in this case.

They are also celebrating Norouz, are in the working class and in an even lower income bracket and would certainly not have seen more advertising for their game by the IFF than Iranian fans did for our game.

It just seems counter-intuitive and embarrassing really that they'd have 6 times more fans than us at the their game - never mind in our country.

One major difference lies in that the Afghans are now residing in Iran and have very little connection to Afghanistan (similar to the Iranians in Australia). Seeing their national team is a rare occasion and is a means by which they are connected to their native country.

[Kiarash]

AFC U-23 CHAMPIONSHIP-TEHRAN

But hosting AFC Youth games in such a huge stadium like Azadi is ridiculous. Why don't they host in Karaj? A very suitable stadium they have for these games. I am sure more people would show up as well.

[ShiroKhorshid]

They hosted a U23 match against Nepal in Azadi?
I just imagined Germanys U21 playing Liechtenstein in Allianz Arena Haha that would never ever happen.

[Bi-honar]

I feel Iran football is set to fail by design. And that is pretty sad.

Of course it's sad bro, but we can't really ignore the limitations on everything in Iran under the IR and more specifically under sanctions and blame everything on the federation either.

It's not like IFF are drowning in cash and refusing to pay for stuff or have the training facilities and refusing to let CQ use them or have authority over the players' sarbazi and don't exercise it.

And it seems that every time they solved one problem, another major issue was raised. They agreed to CQ's pay raise, the sarbazi issue with Pouladi and Rafei came up. They resolved that problem (which frankly I thought was impossible), the next issue was the lack of friendlies.

Now that they got the two decent friendlies, all hell breaks loose over a couple of players. And even if they gave him those players, they still haven't solved the problem with the training facilities which is really sad.

I'm not suggesting that CQ is not right on some or maybe even all of this stuff, but at the end of the day every coach that's working in Iran now or has worked with TM has faced the same limitations and will have to to work with those limitations. The more professional an environment you're used to as a coach, the more issues you will have with these types of limitation.

It would be unrealistic to expect that a coach would be able to change the whole system and maybe CQ finally came to terms with that. As much as I think the timing is TERRIBLE and we most likely won't have a better option in place before WCQ, I think we (TM fans) all have to come to terms with that too and hope for the best instead of stressing ourselves out like we just found out about the issues in Iran yesterday.

Not supporting TM Omid is certainly not going to help the cause in the long term the way 20,000 fans thousand of kilometers away from home did, like you said. I'm still hoping that a couple of good results in the friendlies will change everyone's mind - who knows.

[Bi-honar]

One major difference lies in that the Afghans are now residing in Iran and have very little connection to Afghanistan (similar to the Iranians in Australia). Seeing their national team is a rare occasion and is a means by which they are connected to their native country.

True dat Nader jaan. That's a very good point actually.

In that case, I hope they can't get the day off for their game against us.

[Irannn]

KSA-Palestine 0-0 at half time.

[Ab-Gosht]

KSA-Palestine 0-0 at half time.

its still 0-0 which means iran will finish 1st even with a draw with saudi if this stays the same

[Bi-honar]

I told you guys not to underestimate Palestine. We always had two tough opponents in this group - a tie between them is obviously a good result for now.

P.S. I jinxed the Palestinians - lol. Goal, Saudi Arabia, 88th minute. This means they're going to play even harder against us because another loss would almost certainly put them ou. A win for us would be twice as sweet though - little payback for that cancellation in December.

[04041374]

About 7-8k Afghan fans attended the Azadi Stadium to watch their game vs Palestine, which will start in 20 minutes!

Edit: vs. Nepal

[Nader25]

Any links to watch Saudi vs Palestine, and Afghanistan vs Burma?

[IranPowned]

About 7-8k Afghan fans attended the Azadi Stadium to watch their game vs Palestine, which will start in 20 minutes!

You mean nepal right?

[04041374]

You mean nepal right?

yes, I just realized AFG already played vs. Palestine

[Nader25]

About 7-8k Afghan fans attended the Azadi Stadium to watch their game vs Palestine, which will start in 20 minutes!

Edit: vs. Nepal

Do you have links to watch the game?