Tag: Gholamreza Rezaei

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.

Iran vs Iraq friendly match details.

Team Melli will be meeting Iraq in an international friendly match in Wollongong , New South Wales on Sunday as part of both te teams preparation for the AFC Asian Cup 2015 in Australia..

Carlos Queiroz will be using this match to play his full team for at least one half on order to check on the readiness of the first choice players against one of the better teams in Asia. Iraq , which won the AFC Asian Cup in 2011 is grouped with defending Champions Japan, Jordan and Palestine and considered as favorite to qualify from Group D along with Japan. The teams last encounter in the last edition of the Asian Cup in Doha 2011 , ended in a 2-1 victory for Team Melli with goals coming from Gholamreza Rezaei. and Iman Mobali.

Team Melli has been going through practice at a rate of two per day, morning and evening sessions in Sydney. In the last camp in South Africa, Iran failed to arrange friendly international matches against quality opponents , playing with reserve teams of the 3 different South African league teams. Both Iraq and Iran teams have set camps early in Australia as an acclimatization program. Iraq is coached by Radhi Shenaishel after the Iraqi FA replaced Hakeem Shaker as head coach of Iraq. One of the best Iraqi players in the last few years , Karrar Jassim , to happens to be playing with Esteghlal Tehran , was not picked for the squad this time. Captain Younis Mahmood , who is not attached with any club and currently is a free agent, was picked as a last-minute choice.

 

Iraq v Iran

WIN Stadium, Wollongong, NSW

Sun 4 Jan 2015, 06:00 PM