Tag: AmirHossein SADEGHI

End of the road for Jalal Hosseini

The Persepolis central defender, a veteran of 108 games for Team Melli and 8 goals will be appearing for the last time against Syria.

Seyyed Jalal Hosseini , who has been a fixed player for his club Persepolis winning the league title last season, has not featured in Carlos Queiroz’s team this year although he was included in the squads for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

At 35 , Jalal Hosseini is obviously not as versatile and quick as he used to be years back. He has formed a strong partnership with Pejman Montazeri in Team Melli for the last few years , but his loss of pace , his temperemnt and certain lack of self-control has reduced his chances of appearing for Team Melli and relegated in the pecking order for defenders by Queiroz.

In essence, Carlos Queiroz is a great believer in youth energy and for the six years he has been at the helm of Team Melli , the Portuguese coach has introduced many new players while he easily dispensed with the service of the most senior member of Team Melli without affecting the overall performances or result of the team. In Hosseini’s case, the performance of his club teammate Mohammad Ansari was quite assuring and hence he seems to be the perfect replacement for the aging Hosseini.

Like Mehdi Rahmati, Hadi Aghili, Andranik Teymourian, Khosrow Heydari, Mohammadreza Khalatbari, Mehrdad Pooladi , AmirHossein Sadeghi, Mojtaba Jabbari , Gholamreza Rezaei , Mohammad Nouri, and Mohammad Nosrati before him, the Persepolis defender is bidding farewell after a fine 10 years career with Team Melli which included participation in the FIFA World Cup 2014 and three AFC Asian Cups 2007, 2011 and 2015.

Esteghlal management defies Team Melli.

In a statement to ISNA , Ali Fathollazadeh , the CEO of Esteghlal club said that club will be traveling to Riyadh to play Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia with a full strength squad, including  their Team Melli players

In order for Esteghlal to qualify for the next rounds of the 2014 AFC Champions League , it has to win the remaining two matches. The heartbroken Esteghlal which  was defeated in a crucial last day of the season match by Tractorsazi, will not be competing in the premiere competition of Asian club football after missing out on the ranking. Winning this current edition of the competition is the only salvation for this proud champion pedigree team from Tehran and hence the clubs has decided to go with full force to Riyadh. Esteghlal lost the league title to Foolad Khuzestan while the cup was won by Tractorsazi this season.

With Esteghlal taking all their players, Team Melli may have to depart to South Africa without them. As it is , there will be at least 7 or 8 players missing from the Team Mellli squad already due to club commitments. Players in Kuwait and Qatar are yet to be released by their clubs , while there is no chance of any European based players joining the camp.  There was no comment from the football federation or Team Melli coaching staff regarding Esteghlal decision and their refusal to release their players for the South Africa camp.  Legislation does not force a club to release the players for the national team training camps, so legally the IRIFF is helpless if Esteghlal departs to Saudi Arabia with their full team.

 

Current Team Melli players

HEYDARI, Khosrow

SADEGHI, AmirHossein

TEYMOURIAN, Andranik