Arian Faal
- Iran national football team prepares for the World Cup in Stegersbach – a site inspection of the “Wiener Zeitung”.
Steger Bach. No one wants to talk about politics here, only about football, the World Cup in Brazil and the “honor of Persia”. The slogan that unites national pride and hope to bring the Iranian soccer team luck and will also be featured on the World Cup bus.
Information
(af) Team Melli is next to Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea one of the strongest Asian football teams. Qualified three times to the finale of AFC Asian Cup (1968, 1972, 1976), all of which were won and became champions. Five times (1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2004) in the semi-finals of Asian Cup , three games of them involved penalty shoot-out losses (1984, 1996, 2004). In addition to four World Cup participation (1978, 1998, 2006 and 2014), the national team qualified three times for the Olympic Summer Games (1964, 1972, 1976).
Even if the Islamic Republic was present in the past few years more by the nuclear issue news headline and the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the European media, The Iranians wants their national football team (Team Melli), which has gathered in May for three weeks in Austria for training, to be in the news.
The daily routine of the 28 nominated players is minutely regulated. In addition to a strict diet and fixed workouts, there are always intermediate dates such as the FIFA doping test or one or the other interview. There are only a few who dare to speak to Western media. Tricky questions by reporters swarming around the camp automatically creates cautious and reserves responses. Apparently no one wants to be put into hot water by discussing controversial issues at home and answer questions by the authorities.
“Football has nothing to do with politics,” is what the 31-year-old regular player Andranik Teymourian believes when engaged in a scarce conversation with the “Wiener Zeitung” . “But football can create a bridge of friendship,” he adds.
That was a few days ago. About the lack of jerseys of the team that received much exposure by the world ptress and the shrinking after wash. “The issue with the jersey is finished. We have plenty of them here and hope that they will be of better quality in the future,” said Teymourian a key player in the World Cup qualifiers.
“It is difficult,”
“We have been training really hard in this one and a half months, and I believe there never was in the past few years as a national team as now. Nevertheless, we know that it is difficult,” admits the professional. Three friendlies are in those three weeks of the program, one of them being, namely Belarus, already took place and ended in a draw. In this match at Kapfenberg before 1500 spectators, the Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz almost used his entire squad. Only Daniel Davari and Ashkan Dejagah, who has previously played in the German Bundesliga were not used.
Several hundred of the approximately 30,000 people living in Austria Austro Persians traveled for the first game to support their team Melli. One of them was Arash K. “We have to be present at the games, so that the world sees that Iran has to offer other than the nuclear issue. Iranian national football team is one of the best and strongest teams in Asia. It is therefore self-evident that we qualified for the World Cup in Brazil. On the Fifa ranking of May 2014, we are ranked with 750 points 37th place, “he says with obvious pride. Why the training camp held in Austria, has several reasons. There are good relations between Vienna and Tehran, and it is a good opportunity to force the sports exchanges with Europe.