The interesting thing about this particular campaign was that for the first time, the Iranians living in North America got the chance to see Iran in action. The reason for that was because the famous TV personality, Parviz Gharib Afshar had bought the broadcasting rights for his TV channel, and the games against South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia were shown on his channel. Along side him, was the legendary ex National team player Hussein Kalani and the very famous political and football analyst Manook Khodabakhshian who would give their thoughts and their opinions on how the National team would perform.
Manook in particular had an in depth knowledge of the National team and its preparations and knew each player by name and his playing position. He had visited the National team during one of its camps that it had outside of Iran months before the start of the final round.
The interesting thing about Manook was that before the start of our first game against South Korea and when asked by Gharib Afshar on which two teams he would pick to qualify for the finals in U.S.A, he chose Japan and Saudi Arabia over Iran.
And if it hadn't been for Iraq's late equalizer against Japan in the final game which made South Korea to qualify instead of Japan along side Saudi Arabia, Manook's predictions would have been dead on.
Manook in particular had an in depth knowledge of the National team and its preparations and knew each player by name and his playing position. He had visited the National team during one of its camps that it had outside of Iran months before the start of the final round.
The interesting thing about Manook was that before the start of our first game against South Korea and when asked by Gharib Afshar on which two teams he would pick to qualify for the finals in U.S.A, he chose Japan and Saudi Arabia over Iran.
And if it hadn't been for Iraq's late equalizer against Japan in the final game which made South Korea to qualify instead of Japan along side Saudi Arabia, Manook's predictions would have been dead on.
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