Iran's friendly (March 2018)

[Amin_]

By the way, what happened to our other Egyptian member "Pharaoh"? He used to be very active years ago, also in the General Forum. He was a great guy. Too bad he stopped posting.

[teammelli91]

Dear kastro,

I hope Egypt score 8 or more goals against Saudi Arabia. But if Egypt can score 8 I’ll be happy too

[sarbaz]

Poland and Peru both have already booked thier friendlies for March 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 and still no Iran

South Korea will play Poland in Warsaw

[PSGman#19]

Will we have more than 1 friendly between march and WC?

By friendly I dont mean the like of togo libya trinidad syria iraq uzbek qatar somali pirates etc..

[allan123]

Poland and Peru both have already booked thier friendlies for March 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 and still no Iran
South Korea will play Poland in Warsaw

MAYBE IRAN CAN PLAY IRAQ OR SYRIA 😂😂😂
But serious relax my friend . Maybe IFF arrange some good friendly games in the next days

[Iran_19]

We have more than just Salah. He often is on the end of finishing chances so he'll get most of the attention but we've had other players put in man of the match performances. We currently have a selection problem and it's up to the manager to get it right. We didn't take our strongest squad to the ACN and lost in the final despite dominating. If he gets the team selection right - Uruguay can be had.

Had a closer look to your squad, Egypt have Salah, Elneny, Sobhi and Hegazi in top 4 leagues, plus Kouka in Braga, plus few others in Championship, League 1, Turkey, Greece, Saudi, etc and if i am not wrong only Salah, Hegazi, Kouka are regular starters for their clubs. I know your local league is probably the best in Africa but on paper i don't think your squad is better than other African teams which already qualified.

[kastro]

Had a closer look to your squad, Egypt have Salah. Elneny, and Sobhi, Hegazi in top 4 leagues, plus Kouka in Braga, plus few others in Championship, League 1, Turkey, Greece, Saudi, etc and if i am not wrong only Salah, Hegazi, Kouka are regular starters for their clubs. I know your local league is probably the best in Africa but on paper i don't think your squad is better than other African teams which already qualified.

Our second best player plays in Saudi Arabia. He rejected a chance to go Serie A for more money in Saudi Arabia. Same with Kahraba. They're the two best players in that league. One of our best midfielders plays in Egypt still. At 19 he was one of the best young players in Portugal and had Porto and Benfica interested but his club couldn't afford to make his loan permanent so the top Egyptian club swooped in and offered them more than both Porto and Benfica were. Our CBs - one plays in England, the other in Egypt. The Egyptian based one was our best and most consistent defender in the last ACN! Benfica also tried signing Koka but they didn't take a chance on him after they learned about a heart problem he had from failing his medical twice. Understandable though after the the Miklos Feher tragedy. Sobhi has started a lot for Stoke recently but he's still only young. He will be picked up by a much better team soon enough. Immense talent.

Don't let the league these players play in fool you! Our entire starting 11 could make the grade in any top European league. No doubt about it. I definitely think we're stronger than Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal. We beat Nigeria over two legs and Morocco in the quarter finals despite not having our strongest 11 in both games.

[kastro]

Dear kastro,

I hope Egypt score 8 or more goals against Saudi Arabia. But if Egypt can score 8 I’ll be happy too

Believe me man, I'd love for that to happen!

[kastro]

Kastro

Nice to meet you brother and good to have you here on this board

I have been a member here since 1997 when there was only 5-6 of us

Anyway

I love to see us play Egypt also that would be a very good friendly even tho as you said your style of play is very different than Morroco

Cheers

Thanks for the hospitality! It's a great forum you guys got going on here and I'm glad to be here speaking football. There is a chance we can meet in the round of 16 if we both progress!

[aenima_8]

Algerian source, quoting IRNA, states that Iran and Algerian FA's agree to a friendly match today but not the venue. Mentions match may be held in Algeria:

"2018 World Cup (preparation): Algeria - Iran in friendly next March

12/21/2017 - 8:11 pm
The Iranian national football team will play a friendly match against its Algerian counterpart in March 2018 "probably" in Algeria, the Iranian news agency (IRNA) announced on Thursday.

According to the same source, the Algerian Football Federation (FAF) "officially approved Thursday the programming of this friendly match against Iran", while the FAF has, for the moment, nothing communicated about the holding of this meeting.

The friendly test is part of preparations for the Iranian selection, led by Portugal's Carlos Queiroz, ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia (14 June-15 July).

At the 2018 World Cup, the Iranians will play in Group B with Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

For its part, the national team that failed to qualify for the Russian meeting, will play a series of friendly matches, in March and June, in anticipation of the resumption of qualifications of the African Cup of Nations CAN -2019 planned for September 2018. APS"

http://radioalgerie.dz/news/fr/content/129343.html

[Damavand]

I said it many times FFIRI is not at fault.
Problems are:
1. Many countries fear our Team or are envious towards our team and do not want to play us or pay our team since our ranking is good. Example likes of Colombia, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary. Others who were interested to play us did not as negotiations fall through or postponed the likes of postponed Chile, Sweden, Russia, Venezuela that eventually played a year or more after the initial date of interest, fallen negotiations prior to planning a match likes of Ivory Coast, Morocco, Peru, Paraguay, Gabon, DR Congo, Turkey, Romania, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Albania (few times already), canceled ones like Ghana (FFIRI canceled the camp in Portugal), Croatia, Venezuela (twice canceled in 2011 and then few years later), Cuba, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, North Korea (Canceled by CQ), Palestine (canceled to please Saudi Arabia and screw our team), Kenya (maliciously canceled by Kenya for financial reason) , Ukraine, Norway (still unknown why got canceled)
2. CQ does not want Iran to host European or Latin American teams. Last time Team Melli hosted European was Macedonia in 2009!
3. CQ does not want Team Melli to play high ranked teams. Throughout his time as coach the best friendlies we got were Sweden and Chile. He is insisting domestic league players face the likes of Qatar, Lebanon, Syria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, etc.
4. CQ is very picky about training camps and the strange thing is everytime Team Melli went on camps abroad never played the host team!!! Few camps to Austria our team had where they played other teams not the home team, there were camps in Hungary, Turkey, South Africa, Armenia and never played home teams there!!!
I think the only away teams in friendly were Sweden in 2015, Macedonia in 2016, Montenegro and Russia in 2017!
Iran had established good relations with some teams which now has changed ever since current FFIRI and CQ came on board, for example Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2001-2009 Team Melli played a total of 5 friendlies with them, Croatia 1998-2006 played 2 friendlies, Jamaica 1998-2007 played 2, Costa Rica 2006-2008 played 2, Canada 1997-2001 played 3, Kenya 1997-1999 played 2.
Under current FFIRI and CQ good relations with Angola, Macedonia has been retained and newly established relations with likes of Montenegro and Albania.
Part of the reason could be political eg. Big teams came to Tehran such as Germany in 2004, Slovakia in 2002, Hungary in 1998, Paraguay in 2002, Uruguay came once or twice for LG Cup but did not play us as they played other teams. They never came to Tehran and never invited our teams for friendlies apart from Paraguay who showed interest throughout the years but friendly with them never happen again! Egypt played TM in 2000 but then due to political issues never played TM, Canada also closed embassy in past few years and I guess hence reason for no more friendlies with them

We did play Uruguay in 03 in the either LG cup or Carlsberg final (cant remember which) and we were leading 1-0 until the 83 rd min until a shot deflected off of Golmohammadi and went in. The game went into overtime and Uruguay won on penalties.

I will never forget how savagely the Uruguayans were playing. They were so royally pissed that they were about to lose to an Asian team.

[sarbaz]

It was the Carlsberg Cup and our players also got into a fight with vahshi Uruguayan players

[Cataphract]

We did play Uruguay in 03 in the either LG cup or Carlsberg final (cant remember which) and we were leading 1-0 until the 83 rd min until a shot deflected off of Golmohammadi and went in. The game went into overtime and Uruguay won on penalties.

I will never forget how savagely the Uruguayans were playing. They were so royally pissed that they were about to lose to an Asian team.

Yes, I think that Homayoun Shahrokhi was our coach at that time. We really played a great match!

[Rooyintan]

We did play Uruguay in 03 in the either LG cup or Carlsberg final (cant remember which) and we were leading 1-0 until the 83 rd min until a shot deflected off of Golmohammadi and went in. The game went into overtime and Uruguay won on penalties.
I will never forget how savagely the Uruguayans were playing. They were so royally pissed that they were about to lose to an Asian team.

Yes, I do remember that game. I meant they never played Iran in Tehran in LG Cup tournaments.

[eerooni]

Whatever happened to the LG cup events???? They used to be amazing at attracting good teams to play TM....