Tag: FIFA World Cup 1998

29/11/2022

US AND IRAN PULLED INTO POLITICS

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The American and Iranian soccer teams are the only ones putting politics aside as the sides meet in a match to determine if either nation continues in this World Cup.

The two met at the 1998 World Cup in France when memories of the 1979 Islamic Revolution were still fresh for both countries. Even the White House was talking about the game as then-President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright used the match to discuss the possible resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran, which had been cut off since the 1979-81 hostage crisis.

The State Department a month before that game called Iran the world’s “most active″ sponsor of terrorism, so nerves were frayed for both nations. And just a week ahead of kickoff, a French television station broadcast the 1991 film “Not Without My Daughter,″ a movie based on the true story of an American woman who escaped Iran with her daughter against the wishes of her Iranian husband.

The Iranians claimed the broadcast was a purposeful insult.

Iran won 2-1 but neither team advance to the knockout round. They met one other time — a 1-1 draw in a 2000 friendly.

Now the teams head into their final Group B match Tuesday and the United States can only advance with a win. Iran would advance with a win, and perhaps a draw depending on the results of England’s match against Wales.

But headed into one of the most politically charged matches — rematch in this case — in tournament history, the conversation was again not centered on winning or losing.

In Monday’s pre-match news conference, United States captain Tyler Adams and coach Gregg Berhalter were asked about a variety of social and political subjects that had nothing to do with what happens on the field. Adams was asked to defend the U.S.’s treatment of Black people and chastised for pronouncing the opponent “Eye-ran” instead of “E-ran.”

Berhalter was questioned about U.S. immigration and Naval policy and also apologized for the U.S. Soccer Federation’s decision to strip the emblem of the Islamic Republic from Iran’s flag in a since-deleted social media post.

Iran coach Carlos Queiroz was asked about the social media post, which led the governing body of Iranian soccer to demand FIFA expel the United States from the tournament. He said he did not intend to use the controversy as motivation.

“If after 42 years in this game as a coach I still believe that I could win games with those mental games, I think I did not learn nothing about the game,” Queiroz said. “We have solidarity with the humanitarian causes all over the world, whatever they are or who they are. If you talk about human rights, racism, kids that die in schools with shootings, we have solidarity to all those causes, but here our mission is to bring smiles for the people at least for 90 minutes.”

TWO AT A TIME

Tuesday marks the final day of play for both Groups A and B, and it is the first day of simultaneous kickoffs.

The practice of starting two games at the same time began in 1986, four years after a match dubbed the “Disgrace of Gijon.” The match was scandalous because West Germany and Austria both knew that a German win by one or two goals would advance both teams at the expense of Algeria.

After Germany scored an early goal, neither team tried to score again.

08/06/2021

Ali Daei – The Iran hero Cristiano Ronaldo MUST beat.

Ali Daei set the international goal record on 109 – he was in the World Cup’s ‘most politically charged game’, hit his record-equalling strike twice as a rival was struck by a FIRECRACKER… and downed Chelsea at club level!

Ali Daei scored 109 goals in 149 caps in his 13-year career with the Iranian team
Cristiano Ronaldo is closing in on that tally – he has scored 103 for Portugal

By JACK BEZANTS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 09:13 BST, 7 June 2021

It would have been impossible to realize it then but 15 years ago, on June 17, 2006, the paths of two players who have shaped the landscape of international football crossed for the only time.

Cristiano Ronaldo was one of them. That day, he scored his 12th goal for Portugal from the penalty spot in a 2-0 win against Iran as he helped his side seal a place in the last-16 of the World Cup.

The other was Ali Daei, the legendary Iran striker who with 109 goals in 149 matches, holds the record as the highest ever scorer in internationals. It is one of the few that Ronaldo hasn’t broken but with Euro 2020 on the horizon, he heads into the tournament narrowing his sights on that landmark with his tally at 103.

Daei had a 13-year career with Iran that lasted from 1993 until 2006 and he was involved in some incredible stories amid his relentless scoring record

Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 12th goal for Portugal against Iran at the 2006 World Cup, a game where striker Ali Daei was an unused substitute.

That day, the 36-year-old Daei was an unused substitute. He would play just one more time for Iran, in the ensuing dead rubber group match against Angola which ended 1-1, without him scoring.

Daei’s career is an intriguing tale. His name is at the summit of a long list of players who thrived on the international scene more so than at club level. Pulling on the colors of ‘Team Melli’ brought the best out of the 6ft 4in striker, who was unsurprisingly strong in the air and had a poacher’s instinct in the box.

It wasn’t straightforward for Daei to make it as a footballer. His father didn’t want him to play the game at all until he graduated school and he trained as a metallurgical engineer. But his mother secretly helped him develop his footballing talent, without his dad knowing.

‘I used to leave home without my football uniform and my mother would smuggle it out for me so that I could play,’ Daei told the New York Times in 1998.

He made his Iran debut in 1993 and across Asia, promptly established himself as the most prolific marksman in the game. In fact, just 13 of his goals came outside of the continent and in the way that Ronaldo cashes in when he plays the Faroe Islands or Andorra, Daei did likewise against teams such as Nepal and Sri Lanka.

But Daei’s story as a player is far more remarkable than just banging them in again in against sub-standard opposition. If anything, it encapsulates the pureness of football because while nobody is debating who the more talented is out of Daei or Ronaldo, his story shows how scoring goals can bring greatness.

He scored 20 goals in a calendar year for Iran in 1996 and with a four-goal haul against Lagos in 2004, became the first man to bring up three figures in international football.

Goal No 84 was perhaps one of the most significant. It was that strike that took him level on the all-time scoring charts with the legendary Hungarian Ferenc Puskas but remarkably, Daei had to score it twice before it could count.

Iran were facing North Korea at Tehran’s Azadi stadium in November 2003 and in the second half, they got a penalty. Daei stepped up, scored, and amid the pandemonium, a fan threw a firecracker onto the pitch that hit a North Korean player in the face.

North Korea walked off and refused to play the game, prompting the referee to abandon the match and award Iran a 3-0 win.

But that meant Daei’s penalty was erased and Puskas stood alone on 84 goals for a little longer. Daei eventually moved level with him for good the following week, again from the penalty spot in a match against Lebanon in Beirut.

Later that November, back in Tehran, Daei scored the only goal of the game against Kuwait to move alone on 85 international goals.

Daei didn’t score in the biggest game he played in for Iran, against the United States in the 1998 World Cup. It was billed ‘the most politically charged match in World Cup history’, and for good reason.

Daei pictured celebrating with Iranian supporters after qualifying for the 1998 World Cup. Around him, fans hold up pictures of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini. Iran were drawn against the United States at the tournament, in a game that was billed ‘the most politically charged match in World Cup history’

The day before the game in France, Daei (right) and his team, including coach Jalal Talebi (pictured) were given orders from Khameini not to walk towards the American team

Relations between Iran and the US had descended since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which ousted the pro-Western Shah and replaced him with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who denounced the US as ‘the Great Satan’.

The US had severed diplomatic ties with Iran after the US embassy hostage seize in 1979 and the following year supported Saddam Hussein when Iraq inavaded Iran in what became an eight-year war.

FIFA rules state that Team B in a fixture approach Team A and in this case, Iran were B. But on the day before the game, Khomeini had forbidden Daei and the team to walk towards the Americans, so FIFA negotiated a compromise where the US side walked to Iran.

Fortunately, the hostilities between the countries didn’t transcend onto the pitch. Daei and his teammates were each given a bouquet of white roses to walk out onto the pitch with – a symbol of peace in Iranian culture – and they handed them to the Americans before having a team photo together.

Incredibly, Iran then won the game 2-1 with Daei turning provider for the second and decisive goal, scored by Mehdi Mahdavikia. That victory also dumped the States out of the World Cup.

Iran’s players headed out onto to pitch with bouquets white roses, a peace offering in Iranian culture, to hand over to their opponents on the United States national side

Iran and the US players had a team photo together before the match kicked off – Daei is No 10 and pictured fourth left, in the back row

Daei didn’t score for Iran that day but assisted the second goal as they beat USA 2-1

That same summer, Daei was plying his trade in Europe and had joined Bayern Munich from Arminia Bielefeld, but he struggled to transfer his scoring record with Iran to the German Bundesliga.

He scored just six times in 32 games during the 1998-99 season but became the first Asian player to play in the Champions League.

Chelsea fans may remember him when, the following season, he joined Hertha Berlin and scored twice in a Champions League clash against a Blues side containing the likes of Marcel Deasilly, Gianfranco Zola, and the now France manager, Didier Deschamps.

He retired in 2007 when, back in Iran, he scored in the final to help his team Sapia win the Persian Gulf Cup.

Since then, he has had coaching which has delivered varying degrees of success, including a spell at the helm of the Iranian national side.

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Daei struggled to replicate his scoring record when he played for Bayern Munich but he became the first Asian player to play in the Champions League

And when he joined Hertha Berlin in 1999, he showed his scoring prowess against Chelsea

Daei scored twice as Hertha defeated Chelsea 2-1 in a Champions League encounter

Daei is, however, fully prepared for Ronaldo to break his scoring tally as Portugal’s head into this summer’s tournament as defending champions.

Speaking to Tuttomercato in Italy back in November, he said: ‘I sincerely hope that Cristiano Ronaldo will reach my goal record for the national team.

‘In no way [would I be hurt], it would be a real honor for me if a player of his class could do it.

‘Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players not only of his time but of all time. He is an absolute phenomenon. I would congratulate him directly. But first, he has to get there.’

29/01/202130/01/2021

Mehrdad Minvand Former Team Melli player passes away

Mehrdad Minavand, a former player of Team Melli and Persepolis club, died at Laleh Hospital in Tehran due to coronary heart disease. The Iranian football veteran was hospitalized in Laleh Hospital on the 21st of January. He went to artificial sleep for six days at the diagnosis of the medical staff and underwent surgery. But the efforts of the medical staff to bring Mr. Minavand back to life were unsuccessful. Ali Ansarian, another former Team Melli & Persepolis player who has also played for Esteghlal, was admitted to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) of Farhikhtegan Hospital in Tehran on the same day.

Ansarian, along with the late Mehrdad Minavand, participated in a special program on the Persepolis Club television network on the 11th of January, commenting on the 94th derby between Esteghlal & Persepolis.

Mehrdad Minavand was one of the most important contemporary players of Persepolis after Hadi Nowruzi, who has passed away at a young age. Nader Bagheri, Kazem Seyed Alikhani, Homayoun Behzadi, and Jafar Kashani, veterans of Persepolis Club, have died last year. But all of them were veterans and over 6 decades old. The death of Mehrdad Minavand, at the age of 45, evoked the first shock he gave to Iranian football. Minavand hanged his boots at the relatively early age of 31. None of the players in Minavand’s team in Persepolis or in the national team hung their shoes at that age. He joined Persepolis in 1996 and played 108 times for the reds in two separate spells. Ali Parvin had called Mehrdad Minavand “the best successor” to Mojtaba Moharremi in the left wing of Iranian football in 1996.

Minavand was invited to Team Melli by Mayeli-Kohan and made his debut against Turkmenistan on 25th Nov 1996. He played in 69 games scoring 4 goals in the process. His last match was in 2003.
Mehrdad Minavand’s first national goal against Thailand. The Iranian national team’s equalizer in the Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait was scored by Mehrdad Minavand and his accurate cross ended in Ali Daei scoring. At the end of the twentieth century, the Asian Football Confederation selected this goal as one of the five most beautiful goals scored by a header in the history of the Asian Cup. Mehrdad Minavand was highly valued by the coaches of national teams due to his accurate crosses with his left foot and useful play on the left side of the defensive line. He was one of the most prominent players of the Iranian national team in two tournaments, the AFC Asian Cup 1996 in the UAE and the 1998 World Cup in France. Minavand considered the loss of a one-on-one goal against Ivica Crawley, the famous Yugoslav national team goalkeeper at the 1998 World Cup, to be one of the greatest regrets of his sporting life. However, Minavand’s brilliance in the games against the United States and Germany led him to European football.

Minavand is the first Iranian player to play in the Champions League when he was in Strum Graz, this is before the likes of Ali Daei, Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdabikia and Karim Bagheri, all of whom were his teammates in the 1998 World Cup.

04/06/2018

Team Melli’s World Cup moments of glory.

1978: Danaeifard snatches a point against favoured Scotland

Iran qualified for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina after going unbeaten in their AFC qualifying campaign. They had failed to reach the tournament Finals in their first attempt four years earlier, but Ghafour Jahani’s solitary strike in a 1-0 win over Australia secured Team Melli’s World Cup berth with one match to spare.

Drawn into a difficult group containing Peru, the Netherlands, and Scotland, many believed that the Central Asians were simply there to make up the numbers. A 3-0 loss to eventual finalists Netherlands did not help matters, with Rob Rensenbrink storming to a hat-trick in the teams’ opening match. In their second game against Scotland, things went from bad to worse when Andranik Eskandarian bundled the ball past his own goalkeeper to give Scotland a first half lead.

Instead of letting their heads drop, IR Iran fought back and were eventually rewarded when Iraj Danaeifard skipped past Archie Gemmill and fired home from a narrow angle; the Iranians had finally scored in the World Cup. When the final whistle blew, there were jubilant celebrations, as Team Melli secured their first-ever point in a World Cup.

1998: First World Cup win

After a 1-0 defeat to Yugoslavia on Matchday One, IR Iran came into their tie against the United States knowing they needed a win to keep their qualification hopes alive.

An already-charged atmosphere ignited when Hamid Estili’s looping header over Kasey Keller gave his side the lead. Both teams then battled it out until the 83rd minute, when would-be Asian Footballer of the Year Mehdi Mahdavikia raced clear through on goal before firing past Keller to all but secure a win. Brian McBride then proceeded to pull one back for the US via a scrappy goal to set up a tense final few minutes.

In the end, IR Iran held out for their first World Cup win in five attempts. A 2-0 loss to Germany in their final Group F match saw Team Melli eliminated at the group stage yet again, but the night in Lyon will always be a fond memory for all Iranians.

2014: Heroic performance against Argentina

Team Melli’s return to the FIFA World Cup after missing out on the 2010 edition saw them pitted against eventual runners-up Argentina as well as Nigeria and debutants Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a stalemate in Curutiba against the then reigning African champions, it was time to face Lionel Messi and co on Matchday Two.

Going into the match as the clear underdogs, Carlos Queiroz’s men were not fazed by the opposition, matching the Argentinians in every area of the pitch in the opening period. Jalal Hosseini’s header just above the crossbar was as close as either team got to breaking the deadlock before the break.