What would be the best final round WCQ group for Iran

[Babak agha]

I have a strong feeling that we will get SK again.. I thik both teams know eachother better by now than some of their relatives

[peiman92]

Because we beat them, Iraq lost ranking and are now in Pot 4 and UAE went ahead of them and are now in pot 3. I rather much have UAE in pot 3 than Saudi

Iran, Australia, Saudi, Iraq, Oman and Lebanon would be fun lol.

[Kian H]

I think you should look at this from another angle. I believe the only important thing is, to avoid saudi arabia. Let me tell you why. It is not because i fear Them or Think that they are better than us. But my angle is this:
The difference between Saudi Arabia and Iraq is, that the saudis Will get alot more points from the teams seeded 4-6 than Iraq Will. Just imagine the 4-6 seed teams are china, Oman and Lebanon. Who do you Think Will get most points from these 6 games, saudi or Iraq? Saudi of course. They are the far better team. Iraq drew twice against Bahrain and had a hard time against Hong Kong. Iraq is far better as a underdog than the favorite.
So imagine saudi getting 15-18 points against Those 6 teams. That Would put a huuge pressure on us, and we cant afford to make a mistake. I believe we Can loose against Iraq but still finish above Them, as they Will throw points against the 4-6 seed teams. Saudi wont do that. Saudi Will minimum get 11 points of Those games.
The Best thing for us is, if the other teams loose points among themselves. With saudi we Will have 3 dominant teams in the group, which means that if you fukk up once of twice, you are done. Therefore I dont Care about the team from pot 2 or pot 4-6. As long as we dont get saudi Arabia, everything Will be okay. Because the top 2 goes through, and we just need to be more stable than the pot 3-6 teams, which we Will be, as long as we get Iraq instead of saudi Arabia.
Im not saying we wont qualify if we get the saudis. But it Will be so much more stressfull, and their Will be no room for errors. The only reason we won our group in this round, is exactly what my point is. Iraq won against us, but they couldnt beat Bahrain. Saudi Arabia Would have won twice against Bahrain. And this is what i want to avoid next round

EDIT: if Uae is in pot two instead of Iraq, my point is still the same

[Keshwardoost]

For completely selfish (or maybe logical reasons), I am hoping for us to get Australia and for AFC to decide to have all 10 games done in one hit in Australia which is virtually COVID free and September is spring here, very loud and active Iranian crowd so will be like home games!

yes then maybe something good finaly will come from aussies to afc.. good pitch and weather


I can just imagine the chinese team being hustled at the airport security with security going through all their bags for banned fruit and food that they try to smuggle in to australia

[oracle]

Iran, Australia, Saudi, Iraq, Oman and Lebanon would be fun lol.

I got stomach pain just thinking about such a group

[tooleh khers]

Iran, Korea, UAE, China, Syria, Lebanon.

[shahabGAOL]

IRAN
South Korea
UAE
Iraq
Syria
Vietnam

Iran and South Korea will go Direct to the World Cup 2022 Qatar

[Ostad_Goosfand]

I think you should look at this from another angle. I believe the only important thing is, to avoid saudi arabia. Let me tell you why. It is not because i fear Them or Think that they are better than us. But my angle is this:
The difference between Saudi Arabia and Iraq is, that the saudis Will get alot more points from the teams seeded 4-6 than Iraq Will. Just imagine the 4-6 seed teams are china, Oman and Lebanon. Who do you Think Will get most points from these 6 games, saudi or Iraq? Saudi of course. They are the far better team. Iraq drew twice against Bahrain and had a hard time against Hong Kong. Iraq is far better as a underdog than the favorite.
So imagine saudi getting 15-18 points against Those 6 teams. That Would put a huuge pressure on us, and we cant afford to make a mistake. I believe we Can loose against Iraq but still finish above Them, as they Will throw points against the 4-6 seed teams. Saudi wont do that. Saudi Will minimum get 11 points of Those games.
The Best thing for us is, if the other teams loose points among themselves. With saudi we Will have 3 dominant teams in the group, which means that if you fukk up once of twice, you are done. Therefore I dont Care about the team from pot 2 or pot 4-6. As long as we dont get saudi Arabia, everything Will be okay. Because the top 2 goes through, and we just need to be more stable than the pot 3-6 teams, which we Will be, as long as we get Iraq instead of saudi Arabia.
Im not saying we wont qualify if we get the saudis. But it Will be so much more stressfull, and their Will be no room for errors. The only reason we won our group in this round, is exactly what my point is. Iraq won against us, but they couldnt beat Bahrain. Saudi Arabia Would have won twice against Bahrain. And this is what i want to avoid next round

EDIT: if Uae is in pot two instead of Iraq, my point is still the same

Finally someone gets it! Saudi is dangerous because look at 2018wcq. They got 5/6 possible wins against the “crappy” teams and qualified directly, meanwhile Australia had a bunch of draws and one loss TOTAL vs Japan and had to go to playoff

It all comes down to which team can take care of business best vs the smaller teams in a Group. Last time Saudi Arabia had a tie/loss vs Australia but still qualified directly over them because they got a bunch of wins against teams like Iraq and Thailand, and then beat Japan last game at home (Japan had already qualified and had to travel from japan to Saudi Arabia to play in 5 days so were tired)

[Philosophy_King]

I think you should look at this from another angle. I believe the only important thing is, to avoid saudi arabia. Let me tell you why. It is not because i fear Them or Think that they are better than us. But my angle is this:
The difference between Saudi Arabia and Iraq is, that the saudis Will get alot more points from the teams seeded 4-6 than Iraq Will. Just imagine the 4-6 seed teams are china, Oman and Lebanon. Who do you Think Will get most points from these 6 games, saudi or Iraq? Saudi of course. They are the far better team. Iraq drew twice against Bahrain and had a hard time against Hong Kong. Iraq is far better as a underdog than the favorite.
So imagine saudi getting 15-18 points against Those 6 teams. That Would put a huuge pressure on us, and we cant afford to make a mistake. I believe we Can loose against Iraq but still finish above Them, as they Will throw points against the 4-6 seed teams. Saudi wont do that. Saudi Will minimum get 11 points of Those games.
The Best thing for us is, if the other teams loose points among themselves. With saudi we Will have 3 dominant teams in the group, which means that if you fukk up once of twice, you are done. Therefore I dont Care about the team from pot 2 or pot 4-6. As long as we dont get saudi Arabia, everything Will be okay. Because the top 2 goes through, and we just need to be more stable than the pot 3-6 teams, which we Will be, as long as we get Iraq instead of saudi Arabia.
Im not saying we wont qualify if we get the saudis. But it Will be so much more stressfull, and their Will be no room for errors. The only reason we won our group in this round, is exactly what my point is. Iraq won against us, but they couldnt beat Bahrain. Saudi Arabia Would have won twice against Bahrain. And this is what i want to avoid next round

EDIT: if Uae is in pot two instead of Iraq, my point is still the same

Great Point, KSA is more consistent than Iraq, which lets less room for errors. Also KSA played some solid attacking football, they would give us more trouble than Australia, specially with our at times shaky defense.

I also would like to avoid Oman given the fact that they have Branko as their Head-Coach...

[AliDaeiNumber1Fan]

I don't get this sentiment of wanting the 'easiest' group possible. I mean sure I want the most striaghtforward one, meaning as few Arab nations possible so we get less dodgy shit thrown at us, but we lack good friendlies against top quality opponents so playing Australia instead of a weak Korean team would be preferable right? or a consistent Saudi Arabia instead of an up and coming UAE who we smashed in the last Asian cup no problem.

Don't get me wrong, like someone else mentioned here, I'd like to whoop Iraq's ass a few more times to pipe them down a bit, but I just watched the highlights of the Iraq game when we last played in Iraq and ya abolfazl I could feel the hatred and tension from my phone. Honestly if I were a team melli player in that situation I would have been scared even with the 2:1 fan to security personel ratio.

[Ghermez Agha]

To me there is a very clear weaker team in each pot - the ideal group is:

Iran
Australia
UAE
China
Oman
Vietnam

[PSGman#19]

I don't get this sentiment of wanting the 'easiest' group possible. I mean sure I want the most striaghtforward one, meaning as few Arab nations possible so we get less dodgy shit thrown at us, but we lack good friendlies against top quality opponents so playing Australia instead of a weak Korean team would be preferable right? or a consistent Saudi Arabia instead of an up and coming UAE who we smashed in the last Asian cup no problem.

Don't get me wrong, like someone else mentioned here, I'd like to whoop Iraq's ass a few more times to pipe them down a bit, but I just watched the highlights of the Iraq game when we last played in Iraq and ya abolfazl I could feel the hatred and tension from my phone. Honestly if I were a team melli player in that situation I would have been scared even with the 2:1 fan to security personel ratio.

What's the point having these competitive "friendlies" if we don't qualify for wc at the end?

[sam20]

we cant get them, we are in the same pot.
your post made me remember nekounams goal from that corner against them back in the days, if i remember correctly we won that game 2-1 in the qualifiers

I believe you meant Hashemian! He scored both goals in that match. Nekounam was incidentally involved in the first goal because he collided a bit with Japanese player that went down in the box, allowing the ball to fall to Hashemian and he smashed the first goal in.

[Keshwardoost]

I believe you meant Hashemian! He scored both goals in that match. Nekounam was incidentally involved in the first goal because he collided a bit with Japanese player that went down in the box, allowing the ball to fall to Hashemian and he smashed the first goal in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVstoE9-YgA
yes you are correct! i just looked at the video and its that first goal i was thinking about. but woow it was back in 2006 qualification time has gone so fast! and i was so sure it was Neku but it was Hash..

[milad_b]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVstoE9-YgA
yes you are correct! i just looked at the video and its that first goal i was thinking about. but woow it was back in 2006 qualification time has gone so fast! and i was so sure it was Neku but it was Hash..

This is the game that gave us false confidence in world cup 2006! We had a great team but totally messed up in world cup against possibly 1 average team and 1 weak team. I used to remember that I was so pumped for this WC, that i used to say okay we will score 3 against mexico and draw against portugal or possible narrow win and then put 4-5 goals against angola hahahaha sad but good memories from that summer.

Lol then people started blaming ali daei, attacking his house and car. Then they blamed branko for fighting with ali karimi. Branko didn't even come to iran lol (for tax issue). But the main problem was the fitness of our players. They couldn't play 90 minute. We also had a solakh DF line. I'm glad that issue is all over, tt least now our players can play full 120 minutes .