2014 World cup players Vs. 2018 team

[rdwrrr]

in the run up to 2014 world cup we were just trying to make it to world cup. Our legionnaires at that time were less than a hand full, playing in the second division european teams. In the rup up to 2018 world cup we are getting close to having 10 players playing regularly for their teams in various european leagues. Granted they are not the top leagues in Europe, but never the less they are in Europe, playing lead roles in their respecting teams.

We have
Kaveh tearing up the Belgian League.
Saman doing the same in Sweden
Alireza setting a great precedence in Netherland.
Mohammadi, Ezatolahi and Azmun doing ok in Russia ( I am hoping this rough period will release some of the arrogance out of Sardar)
Masoud, Ansarifard and Hajsafi in Greece.

We have a few more that can come back during the remainder of the year.

the preparation games look to be better than last time. The only thing that we had advantage last time was the long period camps that CQ had with the players which he can not this time due to players playing in the foreign leagues.


Overa all, I can see our players definately playing a much better game in the 2018 games.

Will it be enough? The draw was tough. we were supposed to get an easy group, thats why hoped to move to a different seed.
Any ways, life is never fair. Hopefully we will games that make us all proud of team.

[Kiarash]

2014 World cup players Vs. 2018 team

All that really matters is that we beat Morocco and take it from there, that game is our entire World Cup while in 2014 we wanted to hold Nigeria, and just get a draw from them.

[Rooyintan]

Surely our squad is gonna be higher quality than the previous one, however we must not forget that our squads or at least the main 11 from 78, 98 and 06 were quite good. It all depends on the first game, the three mentioned lost their first games vs Netherlands (78), Yugoslavia (98) and Mexico (06). Apart from 1998 team, the loss in the first game already proved that Iran did not have a chance of getting out of the group stage.

[PersianLegion]

Our Midfield doesn't look good to be honest compared to WC 2014. We don't have good replacement for Neko and Ando and younger Shojai, Gucci and Deja.

JB is in better form and we have bunch of young players with less experience in our entire team. Sardar being out of form and unpredictable is also another factor which shows lack of experience in our squad. We lost a LB in Pooladi who was really great but we got a good player in Milmo. Our RB was my concern up to few months ago because of lack of defensive ability of Rezaian and lack of form of Ghafouri. Now that Vouria is on form I feel a bit more confident in that area. Still we have a problem in CM and most of us feel the lack of a player maker there. Neko helped us as a good ball distributor back in 2014 but who will fill that void now? Deja and Gucci are both a shadow of themselves but we have got Karim back on track and JB is great again. I had high hopes for Taremi but he destroyed his chances himself. Torabi and Amiri will battle for our LW position. Amiri is better than Hajisafi there and Torabi is a wonder kid. I hope CQ gives him a chance in our upcoming friendly matches. Our goal keeper is another concern for us specially against Spain and Portugal.

Overall I have a mixed feeling. We have young blood and hungry talent in our team but we lack experience!