UMBRO Futsal Awards: Six nominees for Iran
Financial Tribune – TEHRAN, Iran’s national team and under-20 team, goalkeepers Sepehr Mohammadi-Kamalabadi and Alireza Samimi, young player Towhid Lotfi, and coach Mohammad Nazemalsharieh are the six nominees in different categories of the awards.
Iranian futsal teams and players have been nominated in different categories of the 18th UMBRO Futsal Awards held by Futsal Planet website.
According to Futsalplanet.com, Towhid Lotfi, futsal player of Mes Sungun Varzaghan club, is nominated for Best Young Player of the Year in the latest list released by the website.
Lotfi who won the 2017 AFC U-20 Futsal Championship for Iran, was also nominated for the AFC Best Futsal Player of the Year but another Iranian Ali Asghar Hassanzadeh won the title.
In the Best National Team of the World category, Iran has conquered two of ten places among the nominees. Iran’s national team and the Iran under-20 team is on the list.
Iran’s national team won the award in 2009. Argentina, Brazil, Brazil Women, France, Poland, Spain, Thailand and Thailand Women are the other nominees this year.
The national team has 11 AFC Futsal Championship titles in its career since 1999. The team finished first in the Futsal Confederation Cup in 2009 as well as Grand Prix Du Futsal in 2007.
In the Futsal World Cup Iran has appeared seven times and the best record achieved was the third place in the 8th edition in Columbia in 2016.
Seyyed Mohammad Nazemalsharieh, Iran’s former futsal player and current coach of the national team has been nominated for the Best National Team Coach of the World.
Nazemalsharieh was nominated in the category last year but Diego Raúl Giustozzi of Argentina won the award. The Argentinean is among the nominees this year as well.
Iran won the UMBRO award for the best national coach in 2009. Hossein Shams is the only Iranian winner so far.
Goalkeepers Sepehr Mohammadi-Kamalabadi and Alireza Samimi are two Iranians among the ten nominees of Best Goalkeeper in the World division.
Winners of the UMBRO Futsal Awards 2017 will be announced on January 10.