You belong to which group of fans?(Regarding players transfers to Europe)

[Iran_19]

I have been around discussion boards for quite sometime, exactly since late 90s. Few members, they know me from here or other discussion board. i follow national team and our football for almost 30 years match by match, i witnessed good & bad days like the rest of them.

Our football experienced a serious down grade after 2006 which was at it peaks in 2010 but we are doing relatively better since.
I guess people of my generation who experienced some decent success of our players in Europe(and having 3 players in one of top teams in Europe as example in Bayren) plus few others in Bundesliga, understand better what i am talking about.

I mean is it the expectation so low that we even follow players in second division of Norway, as i said in other post, in past we had players in Belgium, Greece, Bundesliga II and no one would hear anything about them during whole season, sure social media wasn't as it is today but still, because no one cared, at some point if i am not wrong we had over 15 players in Europe, maybe 7-8 in Bundesliga I, 3-4 in Bundesliga II and few in Belgium, Greece, Austria, Turkey, etc.

So which group do you belong? The ones who get excited over Karimi(and no offense to young Karimi who made a right choice considering circumstance) making the 40 players squad of Dinamo Zagreb(yes not Bayern) in Croatian league or the ones who think our players capacity is much better than this despite all issues.
I belong to second group and sadly some of our even top players belong to first, now making a move to bottom table Turkish league became the dream of many players.
Pretty sad!
I remember days Korea and Japan didn't have half legionnaires we had.
GO IRAN GO!

[perspolis#1]

Sometimes we look at the past through rose-tinted glasses. Our team in 2006 was good yes. They didn't get along with each other and had no consistency leading us to losing in an embarassing meltdown against Mexico and to tie Angola. We had more legionnaires? Yes. Were we better? It's my opinion though, that if we played the 2006 team now(if you could clone Teimourian for this), we would beat them at least half the time. Team Melli has skipped possibly a Stone Age, an Imperial Age, and a Medieval Age when it comes to improving our defense thanks to CQ. An out of shape Daei and a Hashemian desperately trying to head the ball in wouldn't score on us. In fact, judging by how well CQ martialed Omar Abdulrahman in AC2015, you know Ali Karimi of old would be useless on the ball. Lets be serious, most of our attacks in those times were off of him too.

We had players on teams who had stints in Europe(outside of Mahdavikia/Nekounam). It's much more important to play day in day out then be on the bench in some cases. We want to shoot our players from FC Mashad to Bayern Munich and don't want to admit that its fine to have players in Turkey, Greece, Holland, Russia. That's slowly introducing our players to the rest of the world. It has a better long term effect for our football than one stand alone in the Top4 leagues.

I know we are going to face a lot of issues in qualifying because we always do, but I think we've never been more prepared to make it an easier qualification than a usual last game win.

[AsOen5]

I guess many older members don't care about my opinion as I am "only 17 years old" and especially you Iran_19 take the age of someone as an argument to know better about pur football (which I think is totally wrong)
But... In my opinion we should always consider that footbalk is changing.
I grew up with Mahdavikia as my football Idol and I guess It wasn't just because of him being Iranian, many people in Hamburg liked him. But I was a kid and I really started watching our league etc. around 2012. But I was also watching some old highlights TM and Daei, Karimi etc.
TBH If you look at the teams now, of course Hertha, Bayern etc are bigger names. But back then russian/croatian clubs weren't as good as they are now. So I am totally fine with having Ali Karimi at Zagreb and not in the Bundesliga.

[04041374]

I think people are following the likes of Makani, Shahbazzadeh and Karimi mainly because they are considerable players for the national team and have been invited recently or could be called up in the near future, regardless of where they are playing. I don't see much coverage for someone like Davari or Beitashour who haven't been invited since the WC, or Shapourzadeh who had his last TM game in 2008 and is right now playing in Bundesliga 2.

Btw I think I don't belong to any of those two groups, It's very good to see Iranian players joining European teams but I also know that they deserve more than this. I only get very excited when Iranian players join Austrian teams due to personal reasons and I follow their transfer news very closely when a player is linked with a Austrian team (Mohammadi, Sharifi, Nariman Jahan), I'm waiting for an Iranian in Austrian league since almost 10 years

[Zamboor]

I belong to the group that would love to get them to Swedish league, if they succed here they will move on to "bigger europe" But I guess they would never be up to lose them oney they make in Perspolis/SS for this to happen

[Iran007]

Expectations in football, just like expectations in any other part of life must be realistic and in line with reality.
Irans football peaked with the so called "golden generation" in the late 90s and carried over for another 10 yrs or so. This, after a lengthy low point in the 80s following a long war with Iraq and the Aan-Golaab e Islami which all but ruined our nation.
A very young and talented group of players all appeared, grew, flourished and peaked at the same time. Ali Daie, Karimi, khodadad, Bagheri, Mansourian, Abedzadeh, Hashemian, mahdavikia were all of the same generation....

This golden generation of players had little to do with Irans football Academies, infrastructure or training under uneducated Iranian coaches. It was simply a group of God-given and super talented players who all peaked at the same time....
Today, 2 things have weakened Irans football with no real solution in sight....

1- A ruthless, corrupt and dictatorship mafia govt whose only goal is s to remain in power and rule by violence. ( This govt doesn't want football to grow and peak in Iran).

2- A group of uneducated, outdated, old, SonaTee football coaches with zero modern-day training at any level who are dead-set on holding on to their jobs and therefore running any knowledgeable foreign coach out of Iran.

With the corrupt system and horrendous coaching by uneducated coaches such as Gale Noie ( just watch how he got outclassed 4 months ago in UAE with Teractor and list 4-1) and mAyeli Aldang....
With these coaches and the current system in place, nothing good can happen.
So let's be realistic...
Currently there are no AlI karimis and Ali Daies in Iran Pro league.

[Z Joon]

A large part of our transfers depend on European scouting and our country's football reputation, which went really down between 2008 and 2014.

Yes, a player like Torabi would transfer straight to a lower Bundesliga team if it was 10-15 years ago while he can't even manage to draw any European attention nowadays, on the other hand a Japanese or Korean player of similar or even lower ability will easily end up in a mid-table German team without even really proving himself even in his own domestic League.

Our players therefore just have to prove themselves in these secondary type leagues like Russia/Netherlands to rebuild our reputation and re-draw interest from these top leagues. But yeah I couldn't care less about what a guy like Sosha would be doing in the first Norwegian division che berese the 2nd one, I find it exaggerating to follow 2nd Swedish divisions and leagues such as this too, but our other young players like Karimi, Azmoun, Mohammadi etc.. moving early to respectable teams or leagues to work their way up is always encouraging and right now is the only solution to make it to top leagues