Blazevic: Give me four more years

TEHRAN, Nov 18 (AFP)
Miroslav Blazevic, the coach of Iran's doomed attempt to reach the World Cup finals, said here on Sunday that he wants to stay in the job and lead the team into the qualifiers for the 2006 tournament.
"I must study the conditions of the contract, but I would like to stay in Iran for another four years," said the Croatian who saw his team's hopes of making it to the finals in Japan and South Korea next year disappear when they were beaten by the Republic of Ireland in a play-off last week.
Although Iran beat the Irish 1-0 here on Thursday, they lost 2-1 on aggregate after being beaten 2-0 in Dublin last Saturday.
The Iran Football Federation were to meet on Saturday or Sunday to decide the future of Blazevic whose current deal runs out in January.
The Croatian, who led his own country to the semi-finals of the last World Cup in France in 1998, had come under severe pressure from both press and fans after the team lost 3-1 to Bahrain in their final Asian qualifier in October.
Saudi Arabia took the automatic qualifying place while Iran went into a play-off against the United Arab Emirates and then into the home and away match-up with Ireland.
Defeat against the Irish was particularly hard to take for the supporters since Iran had made it through to the finals in France in 1998.
Meanwhile, some senior players are beginning to express their disillusion with the Blazevic regime.
Sirous Dinmohammadi said Sunday that he blamed the Croatian for the World Cup flop
"I scored in the qualifier against the United Arab Emirates, but then I was left out. Blazevic was cowardly
"When we drew with Bahrain in Tehran in the group stage, I told some of my teammates that going to the World Cup would be impossible when we couldn't manage to score at home.
"But Blazevic did not make any changes because he was scared. He was under the influence of some players and took their advice.
"A coach is no good when he listens to the players. His first great fault was that he didn't decide for himself," Dinmohammadi told reporters.
"If it had been otherwise we would have qualified. The 'names' played in the national team, not on their merit - they were the guys the coach called 'my sons.'