Amir Ghalenoei, Team Melli head coach, briefly commented on the status of the squad preparing for the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023, saying: “Fortunately, the team’s conditions are very good. Those players who were worthy, in our opinion, were invited to the national team with different tactical thoughts. Let’s talk in a more detailed program. Considering the short time until the Asian Cup, a short-term plan was drawn up for this purpose but the longer-term plan is to prepare the team for the World Cup with younger players. Other players deserved to be in the squad, but due to the limitation on the number of players we could select, we decided on this list.”
“We went through the list meticulously to finalize these 26 players,” Ghalenoei said.
on the friendly match versus Burkina Faso, he said “Burkina Faso is ranked 57th in FIFA ranking and sitting close to Saudi Arabia. It is a very good team. I noticed some people criticized the selection of that team. Of course, every team we play with will be criticized. We can test our two tactics against them and it will be a serious test. I thank the officials of Kish for paying for this game. I ask all my loved ones to put aside all love and hatred in this month. One day is Amir Ghalenoei, one day is Mr. Queiroz and one day is Mr. Ghotbi. It is important to support the national team at this time. We do everything we can.”
Ghalenoei then went on a rant about patriotism and how everyone should be quiet and just support the team without any criticism.
Like his predecessors, Ghalenoei as a Head Coach is no exception when it comes to being criticized and loathing towards those media that point out his shortfalls. It seems that he is mostly affected by the severe criticism of his aging squad both in the online media and the social media. His claim about building a younger team after the Asian Cup is perhaps a small token of admission that with such an aging team that he picked up for the Asian Cup, the oldest amongst the main contenders for the Asian Cup, it will be that much more difficult to achieve success.