Group B - Iran, Spain, Portugal, Morocco Discussion

[Iran_19]

Teams like Cote d'ivoire, Ghana, Algeria, Cameroon didn't make it this team, it shows how difficult is to make it from Africa, compare to Asia!

[DR Strangemoosh]

Top football article from Guardian today:

Benatia celebrates in style as Juventus win to nil yet again


After joining from Roma, the Moroccan centre-back struggled for fitness and form, but he is now established as a central and inspirational figure

https://www.theguardian.com/football...-nil-yet-again




Mehdi Benatia still feels a certain fondness towards Roma. He left in acrimonious circumstances in 2014, accusing the Giallorossi of failing to deliver a promised pay rise after they qualified for the Champions League. And yet, he has spoken in interviews since about the close friends he retains in the capital.

None of which could dissuade him from celebrating gleefully after he gave Juventus an 18th-minute lead over Roma on Saturday. Italian audiences have grown accustomed to seeing players raise their hands in apology after scoring against former clubs; Benatia let rip with an imaginary machine gun.

He aimed at his own team’s supporters, yet it was the Giallorossi, once again, that he wounded. He had first deployed this celebration while playing for Roma, as a homage to Gabriel Batistuta whose goals propelled them to a Scudetto. For a brief moment, it appeared that the Benatia himself might become a foundation stone in a new title-winning side.

Instead, four years later, he is helping Juventus to maintain their hegemony over Italian football. After giving them the lead over Roma, Benatia then did his part to protect it, putting in a mostly excellent defensive performance in what finished up as a 1-0 win.

He did almost throw away his good work deep into injury time. Giorgio Chiellini wanted to boot a bouncing ball into touch but Benatia ignored his team-mate’s shout and instead played hesitantly back towards Wojciech Szczęsny. Patrik Schick intercepted and ran clean through on goal, but shot too close to the keeper.

This was a game defined by exes and relationships gone awry: Szczęsny played on loan at Roma for two seasons and Schick was supposed to join Juventus in the summer, getting so far as to take publicity photos in club gear, only for that move to collapse following a medical.

Yet Benatia’s central role in Juve’s recent resurgence needs to be recognised. This was the champions’ eighth consecutive clean sheet across all competitions – a run taking in games against Barcelona, Napoli, Inter and now Roma. Benatia has missed just a single match in that stretch: the midweek Coppa Italia win over Genoa.

Contrast that with Chiellini, who has started just three out of eight, while Mattia De Sciglio and Kwadwo Asamoah have alternated with Stephan Lichtsteiner and Alex Sandro at the full-back positions. There has even been change between the sticks, Szczęsny stepping in after Gigi Buffon was injured.

Amidst constant turnover, Benatia has offered a reference point: imposing himself on games with force and fury. The stats show that he wins more headers than any of his team-mates, and cuts out more passes as well. Our eyes can tell us that he gets under the skin of opposing forwards, always one step ahead of them, always prepared to use his physicality to his advantage.

This is already his best season since he was at Roma. Benatia was sold to Bayern Munich in 2014, where club officials briefly persuaded him that semi-automatic celebrations were in poor taste. It felt like a moot point. Benatia could hardly chip in many goals for the Bavarian club when he was barely even getting on the pitch.

His two years at Bayern were undermined by constant injuries, and the picture was initially not much different after he joined Juventus last season. Knee and thigh problems slowed his integration and, with the BBC still in place, it was hard to crack the starting XI even when healthy.

Yet the Bianconeri still opted to make his loan move into a permanent switch this May and Leonardo Bonucci’s subsequent departure opened up a space in the side. So Benatia started, and struggled, as the champions lost to Lazio in the preseason Supercoppa; one week later, Daniele Rugani got the nod alongside Chiellini for the league opener against Cagliari.

There have been plenty of unexpected twists and turns in this season since, but it is hard to dispute now that the champions’ best performances have come with the Moroccan in the side. Beyond talent, Benatia possesses the sort of competitive hunger which has characterised Juventus’s recent successes, but which seemed to have gone missing in the early part of this campaign.

The real reason that Benatia loves to enjoy his goals so emphatically, after all, is because he knows how much it stings him to see opponents do the same. “I hate seeing the other guys celebrate,” he told reporters last month. “It doesn’t matter whether that’s at home or in Europe.”

In a separate interview, he reflected that Juventus’s “strength, for several years now, has been our attitude. We were missing that [at the start of this season], but we found it again.”

There is more to it than that, of course. Massimiliano Allegri has tweaked his tactics, relying more often on a 4-3-3 (or similar) which has permitted him to deploy Blaise Matuidi as additional protection for Miralem Pjanic in midfield. The manager has also been unafraid to drop his stars when their form dipped or he felt they needed a jolt – from Gonzalo Higuaín to Mario Mandzukic, Alex Sandro and now Paulo Dybala.

Juventus are, of course, in the fortunate position of having a squad deep enough to countenance such moves – a luxury that few of their rivals could afford. And they have caught some lucky breaks, too. Allegri’s team could have scored more goals against Roma, but they might also have been denied a win by Schick or Alessandro Florenzi, who saw a late effort come back off the crossbar which only just eluded him on the rebound.

It is also true that Juventus have not yet found their way back to the top of the table. They remain one point behind Napoli, who will celebrate Christmas in first place after twice coming from behind to beat Sampdoria.

Benatia had no hesitation, though, in agreeing with a reporter’s suggestion at the end of this game that Juventus remain the team to beat. As long as he continues to play as well as he has done lately, then even scoring a goal against them will be a significant task.

[Jadou]

I don't think people here realize how hard it is to qualify from CAF. At least when you're playing against shit teams like Qatar and UAE in Asia, you're playing on quality pitches. This isn't the case when playing away to poor African nations. It negatively impacts teams who play football on the ground. Australia struggled against Syria over two legs? Teams like them and Saudi Arabia would never qualify from CAF. I have no doubts.

Also the way FIFA forms the qualifying groups for CAF is ridiculous. It's usually five groups with 4 teams in each - group winner advances. Instead of putting the 5 strongest African teams in different groups, they're usually grouped together leaving 1-2 'easy' groups. Had Ivory Coast or Ghana been in Tunisia' s group for example, they both would have probably won that group.

To the Moroccan in here. What do you base Morocco being stronger than Egypt on? We made the ACN final without our strongest squad due to injuries. We beat you guys, and despite your lot missing some chances, so did we. Your keeper made a point blank save on Trezeguet, while Salah should have also scored from that clever dink on the freekick. 2 of our most influential players were injured for the entire tournament.

I will be supporting Iran and Morocco nonetheless so please get rid of Portugal and Spain!

I agree with you about CAF games comparing to asian ones but i didn't say Morocco bettter than egypt, i said and i'm not the only one, you can go back even to egyptian tv, ON sport,dmc sport... etc.. All admit that in the match egypt vs morocco in quarter final, morocco played better but egypt manage to win, there was big mistake from Benatia, anyway, there is no debate about in Africa egypt is much better than Morocco in term of titles, either in clubs stats or national team stats,no matter if Morocco national team beat egyptian team most of times, i will never forget 1998, Morocco was only team who beat Egypt with oen of bets goals ever from Hadji but Morocco didn't reach final and Egypt won the cup.... for the last quarter final egypt win against Morocco, was first win after 32years if i'm not wrong...
but i repeat, egypt and egyptian players are better formed than Moroccan, local Moroccan players play with their talent and what "god" give to them, and sorry but morocco and algeria have always more talented players, more technical players and egypt and tunisia little, have better formed players, well organized, tactically much better, look more experienced even if they cna be young.....
we can debate for hours about this and that, in ACN morocco still in construction, if you didn't got you first eleven, we worse, many of those who were on ACN, are not even subs now... anyway no matter bla bla... at the end what matter is titles, prizes... and when it comes to that, there is no way to compare, egupt is much better and that's close debate in my eyes, moroccans can say we play better, we have more talents, we beat egypt more... bla bla bla but then? how many titles you have? 1 we got in 1976 pffff ,better we keep quiet, we maybe participate to 5 world cup and egypt to 3 but the question is always " what you won?" , and fact is egypt is by miles much better, that's why for me egypt is Germany of africa and sometimes i like their playing but most time not much, i liked abou trika/ahmad hassan/hazem imam... periods and i even watched little of the greatest mahmoud alkhatib... but actually with H. Cuper now, hmmm i worry about egypt in world cup, counting only on Salah for counter-attack is big risk,.. i hope he will develop more his attacking playing, especially when egypt have players to build attacks from defense with great midfields, smart and sharpe... ike achour, abdallah said(he need rest)... you don't agree with me, egypt can produce better football than they did in ACN and in qualifiers of world cup? egypt can beat Ghana because of counter attacks and struggle against uganda because they have to built their game more... in other hand, what matter is result, i prefer Morocco don't play well and win than they play great like so many times then end lose!! history keep always only result and that's what matter in real at the end. so H. Cuper i don't like much, qualified egypt to world cup with not so good playing football, when precedent egypt team played better but didn't make it so....!!!
Morocco for me will not be really strong before he can keep his level and get better and better for next decade..., the regularity, the continuity... are what say, this team is good or bad, it's not like fullmoon, that comes once a month or once every few years, the team have to be at high level for long time to be considered as a great team or even a good team, and if the team fall, it will be just accident, little fall and get back to real level very fast... that how is Egypt or even their club Al Ahly for example,
for Morocco now it's just the beginning, they are better than last year, than few months before and they seriously can make it in WC, no matter how strong is the group, but still they have long road to confirm in long term.. , what make me more confident is it seems all are working in same direction, the federation, staffs, few clubs.... and the team finally have a soul and character.. things Egypt always had even in their worse times...

well, i wish to Egypt to go as far as possible, like what i wish for Iran,Morocco and all african teams, my dream is african team reach the semi-final , if it's not Morocco i hope it will be Egypt, Senegal.... and why not Iran too?

[Jadou]

from the qualifying match against Ivory Coast, Benatia get back to his level and his self confidence, i think the WC give him a big boost ,now i hope he will not have injury before the world cup even if i still think nobody is irreplaceable.

[PSGman#19]

African football has nothing to be proud comparing to asian football.

African football has the luck to be strongly tied to European football (the center of football) because of historical and geographical reasons. They heavily benefit from the dual nationals that get educated in French, Spanish academies.
Despite all these advantages and an extra spot, they can barely do better than asian sides in World cup.

[Iranianarsenal11]

African football has nothing to be proud comparing to asian football.
African football has the luck to be strongly tied to European football (the center of football) because of historical and geographical reasons. They heavily benefit from the dual nationals that get educated in French, Spanish academies.
Despite all these advantages and an extra spot, they can barely do better than asian sides in World cup.

Lmaooooo right...

Dude Asian football is straight shite

As much as I love Iran you can't say its better than African football.

[PSGman#19]

Lmaooooo right...

Dude Asian football is straight shite

As much as I love Iran you can't say its better than African football.

I didn't say they are better, I said African with all the advantage they have from the start don't do much better than Asian in the world cups.

If like some african countries, Iran had as much dual nationals in french and spanish academies, free pass for IPL players to play in West europe, help of west european coaches for our national teams and clubs, non boycott to play TM in friendly, moroccans would be praying for not losing more than 3/0 against us in june.

[Jadou]

I didn't say they are better, I said African with all the advantage they have from the start don't do much better than Asian in the world cups.

If like some african countries, Iran had as much dual nationals in french and spanish academies, free pass for IPL players to play in West europe, help of west european coaches for our national teams and clubs, non boycott to play TM in friendly, moroccans would be praying for not losing more than 3/0 against us in june.

lose 1 or 3 is same, so i will simply pray to win and not lose, i don't care how we play, what matter is 3 points, in friendly games we can show off or play well but in official games, we simply have to win, and hmmm i don't care to lose against Iran 20-0 if we make it to the second round in WC...
i don't think you will win but i think, we both should try focus on going to the next round more than focus on each other and see who will eliminate the other. it's what H.Renard do i think, his target is 1/8 round but he hope the semi-final, i like his mind, of course if he fall it will be falling from high but he will do better next world cup since his contract is until 2022 no matter results in WC, his result in ACN 2019 will be more important for his contract i guess.

[kastro]

I didn't say they are better, I said African with all the advantage they have from the start don't do much better than Asian in the world cups.
If like some african countries, Iran had as much dual nationals in french and spanish academies, free pass for IPL players to play in West europe, help of west european coaches for our national teams and clubs, non boycott to play TM in friendly, moroccans would be praying for not losing more than 3/0 against us in june.

Egypt doesn't have these links to Europe you're talking about. We don't speak French like the west Africans, Moroccans, Algerians, etc., yet we're the most successful African team ever and have the strongest league in Africa. Al Ahly is definitely the most accomplished club in Africa - and by quite some distance. We've won a record 7 ACN titles and could have easily had 2-3 more. So what advantages does Egypt have? We were regularly destroying teams like Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Algeria, Nigeria in their primes with all their players playing for Champions League clubs. You don't win 3 ACN titles in a row by accident.

[inarsenewetrust]

Egypt doesn't have these links to Europe you're talking about. We don't speak French like the west Africans, Moroccans, Algerians, etc., yet we're the most successful African team ever and have the strongest league in Africa. Al Ahly is definitely the most accomplished club in Africa - and by quite some distance. We've won a record 7 ACN titles and could have easily had 2-3 more. So what advantages does Egypt have? We were regularly destroying teams like Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Algeria, Nigeria in their prime with all their players playing Champions League clubs. You don't win 3 ACN titles in a row by accident.

Egypt is an exception, and we saw for many years that egypt did struggle. But teams like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria all are mostly made up of players who grew up in europe, which is obviously a clear advantage.

[kastro]

I agree with you about CAF games comparing to asian ones but i didn't say Morocco bettter than egypt, i said and i'm not the only one, you can go back even to egyptian tv, ON sport,dmc sport... etc.. All admit that in the match egypt vs morocco in quarter final, morocco played better but egypt manage to win, there was big mistake from Benatia, anyway, there is no debate about in Africa egypt is much better than Morocco in term of titles, either in clubs stats or national team stats,no matter if Morocco national team beat egyptian team most of times, i will never forget 1998, Morocco was only team who beat Egypt with oen of bets goals ever from Hadji but Morocco didn't reach final and Egypt won the cup.... for the last quarter final egypt win against Morocco, was first win after 32years if i'm not wrong...
but i repeat, egypt and egyptian players are better formed than Moroccan, local Moroccan players play with their talent and what "god" give to them, and sorry but morocco and algeria have always more talented players, more technical players and egypt and tunisia little, have better formed players, well organized, tactically much better, look more experienced even if they cna be young.....
we can debate for hours about this and that, in ACN morocco still in construction, if you didn't got you first eleven, we worse, many of those who were on ACN, are not even subs now... anyway no matter bla bla... at the end what matter is titles, prizes... and when it comes to that, there is no way to compare, egupt is much better and that's close debate in my eyes, moroccans can say we play better, we have more talents, we beat egypt more... bla bla bla but then? how many titles you have? 1 we got in 1976 pffff ,better we keep quiet, we maybe participate to 5 world cup and egypt to 3 but the question is always " what you won?" , and fact is egypt is by miles much better, that's why for me egypt is Germany of africa and sometimes i like their playing but most time not much, i liked abou trika/ahmad hassan/hazem imam... periods and i even watched little of the greatest mahmoud alkhatib... but actually with H. Cuper now, hmmm i worry about egypt in world cup, counting only on Salah for counter-attack is big risk,.. i hope he will develop more his attacking playing, especially when egypt have players to build attacks from defense with great midfields, smart and sharpe... ike achour, abdallah said(he need rest)... you don't agree with me, egypt can produce better football than they did in ACN and in qualifiers of world cup? egypt can beat Ghana because of counter attacks and struggle against uganda because they have to built their game more... in other hand, what matter is result, i prefer Morocco don't play well and win than they play great like so many times then end lose!! history keep always only result and that's what matter in real at the end. so H. Cuper i don't like much, qualified egypt to world cup with not so good playing football, when precedent egypt team played better but didn't make it so....!!!
Morocco for me will not be really strong before he can keep his level and get better and better for next decade..., the regularity, the continuity... are what say, this team is good or bad, it's not like fullmoon, that comes once a month or once every few years, the team have to be at high level for long time to be considered as a great team or even a good team, and if the team fall, it will be just accident, little fall and get back to real level very fast... that how is Egypt or even their club Al Ahly for example,
for Morocco now it's just the beginning, they are better than last year, than few months before and they seriously can make it in WC, no matter how strong is the group, but still they have long road to confirm in long term.. , what make me more confident is it seems all are working in same direction, the federation, staffs, few clubs.... and the team finally have a soul and character.. things Egypt always had even in their worse times...
well, i wish to Egypt to go as far as possible, like what i wish for Iran,Morocco and all african teams, my dream is african team reach the semi-final , if it's not Morocco i hope it will be Egypt, Senegal.... and why not Iran too?

To be honest, I'm not completely sold on Cuper's tactics. He very defensive. The team is following orders. They can easily play football as we posses one of the best brands on the continent. We've always been known for it. Most of these players played a completely different style together for the U20s when they won the U20 ACN. We have a lot of attacking players with pace who can be deadly on the counter. I personally hope he focuses more on attack because it's tournament football and the squad is more than capable. If we attack Uruguay, we can do damage.

In Africa - you need to be very good defensively to stand a chance of qualifying. You Moroccans did a good job of that hence qualification.

[kastro]

Egypt is an exception, and we saw for many years that egypt did struggle. But teams like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria all are mostly made up of players who grew up in europe, which is obviously a clear advantage.

I agree with you on the other North African teams have these links like language that makes it easier for them to move to Europe at a very young age if not already born and raised in Europe.
We've been extremely unlucky even it comes to WCQ. It still boggles the mind how we've ended top scorers in all of Africa in two recent previous campaigns - yet didn't qualify. I think we'll definitely start qualifying consistently from here on in.
By the way, I don't know how bad the officiating is in Asia but I've heard it's pretty bad. It's abysmal in Africa. Senegal and South Africa had to replay one of their WCQ matches due to a corrupt Ghanaian referee who FIFA banned for life. Lol smh

[Jadou]

Egypt is an exception, and we saw for many years that egypt did struggle. But teams like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria all are mostly made up of players who grew up in europe, which is obviously a clear advantage.

algeria and Morocco are who use more players born in europ or immigrate to europ and it's become more around 2000 and above, before there was always more local players and few who could make it and go to be professional level in europ from local leagues, but from 2000 to nowadays, there is more players born or grow up in europ than those who grow up in Morocco/Algeria and becomes professional in Europ.

Tunisia and Egypte still count more on local players plus few who gone to europ or elsewhere from local leagues and only very few being born or formed in europ or no one....
Morocco with more than 1 million in france and over 500000 in belgium/holland.... Algeria with much more, they over 7 millions abroad i think and around 4 millions in france maybe, and we talk about 3rd/4th generation now...
for Egypt and Tunisia we will see probably more "legionnaires" in next generations..
what matter is coaches choose really the best players no matter if they are formed locally or outside origines land.

[inarsenewetrust]

algeria and Morocco are who use more players born in europ or immigrate to europ and it's become more around 2000 and above, before there was always more local players and few who could make it and go to be professional level in europ from local leagues, but from 2000 to nowadays, there is more players born or grow up in europ than those who grow up in Morocco/Algeria and becomes professional in Europ.

Tunisia and Egypte still count more on local players plus few who gone to europ or elsewhere from local leagues and only very few being born or formed in europ or no one....
Morocco with more than 1 million in france and over 500000 in belgium/holland.... Algeria with much more, they over 7 millions abroad i think and around 4 millions in france maybe, and we talk about 3rd/4th generation now...
for Egypt and Tunisia we will see probably more "legionnaires" in next generations..
what matter is coaches choose really the best players no matter if they are formed locally or outside origines land.

We have a similar obsession with legionairres in Iran. But that is because the professionalism of our league is low, so these players are very rarely as fit as legionairres, or as tactically sound. However there are exceptions, the players in our big 2-3 clubs, Perspolis, Esteghlal, Sepahan, all are trained by qualified foreign coaches who have all had big jobs within the last 5 years out of iran. The players on these teams that play for our national team are mostly at a european level, with most of them being much more talented than many players in european leagues that we see. Mehdi Taremi and the rest of the Perspolis players especially.

I assume Egypt is similar with so many Al Ahly and Zamalek players in your NT.

[KasraKhan]

Only on PFDC you have an Egyptian and Moroccan having a friendly conversation about which of their countries are better in Africa.

I love this board.