Tag: Atlético de Madrid

Grand performance by Mehdi Taremi in UCL.

Team Melli’s central striker Mehdi Taremi accomplished a grand Man-Of-the-Match performance for his team, FC Porto, against the group leaders Club Brugge by leading them to a 4-0 win away.

In the 33rd minute, Taremi opened the scoring with an immaculate snooker-type shot into the former Liverpool keeper Mignolet. The 30-year-old forward also closed the match with his second and Porto’s fourth in the 70th minute.

Meanwhile, Taremi also provided a slick pass to assist Eustaquio for the third goal in minute 60.

Taremi could have easily scored a hat trick, but his effort earlier in the first half was shot high off the mark while he was on-to-one against Mignolet.

Sergio Conceicao’s FC Porto is second in the table and would qualify early if Atletico Madrid fails to beat Bayer Leverkusen, missing Azmoun, in the later match.

With a rating of 9.1 and a man-of-the-match performance, Taremi has primed at the right time for the World Cup in less than a month.

The Marco Polo of Iranian Football.

The 25-year-old Team Melli holding midfielder left the ninth club team of his football career. Saeed Ezatollahi, the Al Gharafa midfielder, is gradually setting an interesting record in terms of changing teams. This Iranian player, a product of Malavan Bandar Anzali Academy, has played in 9 teams so far and is now looking to join his tenth club team.

Saeed Ezatollahi has quite often played for several clubs as a loan player, and if this trend continues, he may be able to set a world record by the end of his football career. Ezatollahi started his football career with the Bandar Anzali Malavan and was able to be quickly recognized as a phenomenon in Iranian football at an early age. He soon joined the Atletico Madrid C team but never managed to attract the attention of the senior team. Rostov, Anzhi Makhachkala, Amkar, Reading, Eupen, Vejle Boldklub, and Al Gharafa Qatar then. s in which the 25-year-old Iranian midfielder has played so far.

He is likely to be one of the players selected for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar and could experience his second World Cup appearance at the age of 26 and reach the peak of his maturity. The Iranian midfielder has not yet been able to establish himself in European football even in the lower-tier leagues. Being in the top teams in this continent has not helped Ezzatollahi much, and this talented player still has many years ahead of him but he mostly failed to choose the right team while his chronic injuries and inconsistency due to absence from the team have marred his career.

While being one of the best in Asia at younger age levels, he has managed to score only one goal in 44 national games for Team Melli. Many of the club teams he has selected are indicative of p[oor advice and career management. The Marco Polo of Iranian football performances has suffered frequently due to this unstable career.

It remains to be seen what Ezzatullahi will decide and where the winds will take him next.

In the Iranian football system and hierarchy, there is no specialist department for younger players with the potential to seek learned and professional advice to steer the players in the right direction in their professional careers. All such decisions are left to agents and brokers whose only interest is financial returns. The chaotic Football Federation has suffered chronic mismanagement and corruption making it unsuitable to be a platform for the development of younger players with potential. Other sports organizations in Iran are on par with FFIRI and are useless for guidance and career development.

Youth career
2008–2010 Shahrdari Bandar Anzali
2010–2014 Malavan
2014–2015 Atlético Madrid
Senior career
Years Team Matches Goals
2012–2014 Malavan 19 0
2014–2015 Atlético Madrid C 5 0
2015–2020 Rostov 18 -2
2017 → Anzhi Makhachkala (loan) 11 0
2017–2018 → Amkar Perm (loan) 16 -1
2018–2019 → Reading (loan) 4 0
2019–2020 → Eupen (loan) 4 0
2020– Vejle 42 -5
2022– → Al-Gharafa (loan) 4 0

Azmoun suitors.

No doubt that the global lockdown and ceased football activities have deprived the media of reporting on football’s numerous competitions and actions on the field thus denying the journalist and reporters from vital sources of material to fill pages and pages of newspapers or electronic media.

To compensate for that, the media has found an alternative source of news off the field and mostly focused on the transfer market.

This subject has always been doggy, to say the least as the countless number of false and fabricated news that has marred transfer market news has relegated such reports to the dustbin department with the significant majority of the fans losing interest in them. The fabricated news, many times originated by some of the players themselves for self-serving purposes or forcing their demands on their clubs, has left a bad taste in the mouths of true football fans.

 However, What do you know as the subject of transfer news is suddenly alive and right at the top on the football news by the virtue of one COVID-19 endemic.

In this neck of the woods, the player who has been constantly in the limelight is no one but Sardar Azmoun.

The Team Melli and Zenit St. Petersburg striker, has been the subject of all sorts of transfer targets which neither the player himself or the club has ever confirmed.

After the English, then Scottish clubs’ interest, the focus shifted to Napoli of Serie A who were supposed to be the front runners in the race for Azmoun. However, it seems that Napoli must wait in turn as others are supposed to be interested as well.

Somewhat at this, it seems that La Liga club Sevilla FC is seeking to recruit him as well.  Sardar Azmoun has spent his entire professional career in Russia, between Rubin Kazan and Rostov, until January 2019 when Zenit paid 12 million Euros for his transfer and signed him to a contract until 2022.

Now, the Saint Petersburg club, given the number of suitors who are linked to their player, would be asking for no less than 25 to 30 million, according to ‘Breakingnews’. The suitors, which includes Sevilla FC in a list of five clubs, are interested in the 25-year-old forward, who in the current season added 14 goals and 7 assists in his 29 official matches, currently being assessed by Transfermakt at 14.5 million euros, although his value a few months ago was 18 million.

 

KAZAN, RUSSIA – JUNE 20, 2018: Iran’s Sardar Azmoun (L) and Spain’s Gerard Pique in a First Stage Group B football match between Iran and Spain at Kazan Arena at FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. Sergei Bobylev/TASS (Photo by Sergei BobylevTASS via Getty Images)

The rivals of the Sevilla FC club would be West Ham, Atlético de Madrid, Fiorentina, and Nápoli, who seem most interested in closing the signing of Azmoun as soon as possible and could present a formal offer shortly to avoid the auction that could stand out when the market opens, according to the aforementioned source.

‘Breakingnews’, adds that it is the intermediary Fali Ramadani who is in permanent contact with the Spanish director of Zenit, the Spanish Javier Ribalta, as well as with the footballer’s family to evaluate all possibilities.

The premier league side West Ham are one of several clubs in a ‘fierce competition’ to sign Sardar Azmoun according to http://sportwitness.co.uk/

As on many other fronts, therefore, competition would be high if Sevilla FC decided to move for Azmoun, the protagonist of a curious story because before deciding on football, he played volleyball and went international for his country in several age level teams without playing a single match in the domestic Persian Gulf Professional league.

Azmoun, a Turkmen born in Gonbad-e Kavus has scored 32 goals in 50 matches at the international level for Team Melli.

He is perhaps the most valuable player in Team Melli who missed the FIFA World Cup 2014 by a whisker when Carlos Queiroz, despite his strong admiration of Azmoun’s talent,  decided to exclude him from the squad heading to Brazil because of his young age.