Kaveh Rezaei , the central forward of Iran’s U23 team , in an interview with Mehrnews , apologized for the Iranian fans for the humiliating result against Vietnam. Rezaei attributed the loss on bad luck , while on the other hand, he expressed his bitterness against all the criticism directed towards the team and considered it destructive !

Kaveh Rezaei is partnering Mehdi Sharifi , two of the top young guns of Iranian football , in the Olympic team (Iran U23). The pair of them have wasted at least 4 definite scoring opportunities against Vietnam especially since Yaghoub Karimi was substituted in and impressively fed the pair with quality balls and crosses.

Rezaei attributed his misses and the team loss to bad luck, while he claimed that Vietnam was very lucky as they scored from every attack!

Rezaei said “Believe me when I tell you that all of us could not sleep after the defeat. We were at fault for this defeat, but this sort of things happens regularly in football.  We were bad and the Vietnamese were lucky.”

“We ran for 90 minutes and fought for every ball, but we were not successful. Brazil also heavily lost to Germany and so did Spain, but they were not crucified as were are being treated back home”

 “Many people consider this team as the hope of Iran’s football future. This team has lost and it needs support and encouragement from the public, not condemnation!”

“It is not proper to receive so much criticism. Everyone is talking against us and that is destructive. The people who are supposed to be our mentors and seniors are speaking against us, instead of guiding and encouraging us”

Rezaei concluded “It is just not fair to be on the receiving end of so much denunciation and verbal attack. Despite all that, we will do our best to beat Kyrgyzstan tomorrow and qualify to get a medal.”

Kaveh Rezaei , probably expected a pat on the back and “Hard Luck” commendation from everyone for a job well done against Vietnam! His reaction underlies how some footballer’s mentality has swayed off course.