Iran’s Omid (U23) football team failed to advance to the final stages of the AFC U23 Asian Cup™ Qatar 2024 and the chance to qualify for the Paris Olympics. This under-23 national team, which, like its previous generations, has some prominent players in their own right, and despite the experience of the likes of Amin Hizbavi, Yasin Salmani, Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad, Mohammad Reza Bardbar, and Allahyar Sayadmanesh, failed to score against Uzbekistan and was the weaker team in the final match.
After two wins against weaker opponents namely Hong Kong and Afghanistan, the crucial game against the host, which scored an amazing 18 goals against the same two weak teams, was a must-win situation. However, Omid lost and it was now up to the classification of the 4 best second teams. Malaysia had an identical record as Iran, but booked its place in the final rounds based on a better disciplinary record, to add salt to the wounds of the Iranians.
In the post-match press conference, despite this humiliation, Reza Enayati was defiant and blamed the loss against Uzbekistan on everything but himself while rueing the two yellow cards his players received. Funnily, he blamed the results against Hong Kong and Afghanistan on the pitch, as if Iranian stadiums and grounds are exemplary!
Digging deep into the selection of this coach, evidently, he was supported and approved by Amir Ghalenoei, the head coach of Team Melli and former Estaghlali like Enayati himself. Through a complicated process, despite the differences of opinion among the country’s football leaders and sports managers. Mehdi Taj, head of FFIRI planned to hand over the executive and management affairs of Omid Team to Habib Kashani, as in the past. The numerous financial problems of the Football Federation forced Taj’s to extend a hand to the member of the Tehran City Council to try to break the spell of the Olympics’ failures with Kashani’s management experience in sports.
Kashani agreed to take over the affairs of the team, conditionally on having total authority, including the appointment of the head coach, and without interference from anyone. That never happened. Kashani quietly withdrew and declined calls by the federation to re-consider.
Many local coaches were approached and offered the chance to be the head coach of Team Omid. The likes of Hamid Derakhshan, Mehdi Tartar, and Mojtabi Hosseini, all rejected such appointments. The 46-year-old, Reza Enayati, who has been jobless since he left Naft Masjed Soleyman was chosen with the direct approval of Ghalenoei, despite his lack of experience and weak resume.
Kashani opposed Enayati’s choice from the very beginning, and when he felt the appointment was going through against his will, he left the job and resigned from his post as Manager of Omid Team. For arranging matches for the team, Mehdi Taj, could only get WAFF U23 Cup. In this regional competition, Omid won against Syria and drew against Palestine. They then defeated Jordan in the penalty shootout and went to the final with Iraq, but this time the penalty shootout was not auspicious for the team as Omid was content with a second-place finish.
Enayati was then able to enforce the Turkish camp program with the extensive support of Ghalenoei and two of his close friends. in Turkey, the team was able to have good preparatory games which raised the expectations that Omid would go through to the final first stage of the Olympic qualifiers.
With all the players at his disposal, Enayati went to Tashkent, Uzbekistan to lead one of the most promising generations of Iranian under-23 teams. With the extensive support of the head coach of Team Melli, who supported Enayati providing the team with Sayadmanesh, Hizbavi, Salmani, and HosseinNejad, The only absentee was Saman Fallah, who stayed in Tehran due to injury.
Iranian football is experiencing a yearning of half a century to qualify for the Olympics. The Olympic mascot for Iranian football enters its sixth decade it is considered a completely wrong way to manage hopes.
A brief look at this half-century of regret shows that one of the weaknesses of the strategy has always been in choosing the right management model for the team or how to choose the head coach and creating a platform for the cooperation of clubs with this team. Choosing a person who is perhaps in the third or fourth tier of Iranian coaches, is a sure way to fail. everyone understands that.
Enayati, when asked about the chances of winning this group, before traveling to Tashkent, said “Inshallah, with the good prayers of the fans, we will win” !!!
If we have to depend on prayers, why would we need him on the bench of the Omid Team? we might as well do our prayers and hope for the best.
The recipe of failure was drawn this time with Enayati’s lack of experience and the poor vision of Ghalenoei and the football federation headed by an incompetent Mehdi Taj who is the master of apology in Iran. This time like last time there was nothing to offer the fans except for the repeated word “regret”. There is no talk of any long-term plan, which is definitely alien for this federation, no talk of gap analysis and where things could have improved, what they learned from their mistakes, and technical analysis of the team. Nothing but “We are sorry”, They move on to the next failure.
It is the Asian Games next. The Omid team has already flown to China for their first match against Saudi Arabia on 19th September 2023 in Linping Sports Centre Stadium.
full schedule :
| Date | Time | Match | Venue | |
| 19-Sep-2023 | 19:30 (15:00 Iran time) | Saudi Arabia – Iran | Linping Sports Centre Stadium | |
| 21-Sep-2023 | 19:30 (15:00 Iran time) | Iran – Vietnam | Linping Sports Centre Stadium | |
| 24-Sep-2023 | 19:30 (15:00 Iran time) | Iran – Mongolia | Shangcheng Sports Centre Stadium | |