Tag: Hamid Estili

Uzbekistan, a tough test for Omid in today’s match.

Iran Omid national team will be playing Uzbekistan in their first match in the Asian-Olympics Tokyo qualifying group stage group C.

The team which has been preparing for over two years and has made several coaching changes is a group that is possibly the toughest one of the 4 groups. China and Korea Rep make the other two teams of the group.
Hamid Estili announced the team line up for the first match.

Habib Abbasiifar, Mojtaba Najarian, Mehdi Mehdikhani, Allahyar Sayyadmanesh, Reza Shekari, Reza Dehghani, Mohammad Mohebbi, Ali Shojaei, Matin Karimzadeh, Omid Noorafkan, and Aref Aghasi

Omid will be in an excellent position if they can win all the 3 points against the tough Uzbek team. The defending champion Uzbekistan is one of the favorites to qualify for the Olympics.

The match will start 13:45 Iran time at Tinsulanon stadium in the south of Thailand.

Omid Team arrives in Thailand

Iran’s Omid Team arrived in Thailand to start preparing for the upcoming AFC U23 Championship 2020. The squad flew to Bangkok then transferred to a domestic flight to fly south to Songkhla near the border with Malaysia.

Hamid Estili has made sure that the players have enough time to acclimatize before the competition starts on the 9th Jan against Uzbekistan.

Iran is unquestionably in the most difficult group facing the powerful Koreans, the defending Champion Uzbekistan, and the aspiring Chinese team. In simple term, there is no easy matches for Omid team in Thailand. A win in the first match will be the perfect result but by no means an assurance to qualify for the next round.

This championship is also the qualifying rounds for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The top 3 teams from this tournament will make it to Tokyo.

Omid team ties Qatar with Gentleman Estili’s generosity!

In a friendly match held in Doha, Iran’s Omid Team (U23) tied with Qatar U23  2-2 today. The match played on Saturday evening at Al Arabi’s Hamad AlKabir Stadium behind closed doors.

Omid team led the first half 2-0 with goals scored by Reza Shekari from a penalty kick, and Mehdi Ghaedi.

Hamid Estili’s had the upper hand on Félix Sánchez Bas, the Spanish coach of Qatar and the Asian Cup Champions in the first half. Both teams are preparing for the upcoming AFC U23 Championship in Thailand, which is also the qualifiers for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 football tournament.

In the first half, Qatar player Mohammed Emad Aiash was sent off in the 35th minute for violent conduct, however, Hamid Estili suggested to his Qatari counterpart Felix Sanchez to replace the sent off player with another one. Qatar team obliged as they sent in Ahmed Suhail to replace the sent off player.

It was the sportsmanship act by Estili and a clever one too as he needed to see his team play against the strongest opposition possible regardless of the result.

The ensuing Free kick from the sending off was a beautifully executed goal by Mehdi Ghaedi.

The first half ended 2-0 for Iran’s Omid team.

At the beginning of the second half, the Qatari’s again lost another player Yusuf Abdulrazzaq with a red card. And again, Estili became the true gentleman and invited Sanchez to send a replacement! This time Qatar sent Amro AbduFattah to the field.

It is the first time in history at this level of football that one team is given two red cards, yet continue playing to the end with 11 players. Simply unheard of.

Abdul Rashid Ebrahim reduced the deficit on the 83rd minute for Qatar. The same player scored the equalizer in the dying seconds of the match om minute 96.  As customary with Iranian teams, there is always a lapse of concentration leading to conceding a goal.

In support of Hamid Estili’s demand for the league to be postponed, the FFIRI partially postponed some of the matches to enable the Omid team to set up a training camp in Doha and play this friendly match.

Teams Line up

Iran U23

Merag Esmaeili: Aref Aghasi, Mojtaba Najarian, Matin Karimzadeh, Reza Dehghani [76′ Sina Zamehran], MohammedMedi Mehdikhani, Mohammad Mohebi [66′ Mohammad Khodabandelo], Ali Shojaei [70′ Amir Roustaei], Omid Noorafkan, Mehdi Ghedi [70′ Reza Jabeira], Reza Shekari [66′ Jafar Salmani]

Coach : Hamid Estili

Qater U23

Mohammed AlBakri: Abdullah Ali Saei, Tarek Salman, Mohammad AlBayati, Yusuf Abdurazzaq , Abdulla Abdulslam, Khalifa Saad, Mohammed Emad Aiash , Hashim Ali, Abdulrahman Mohammed, Homam Elamain Ahmed.

Coach : Felix Sanchez Baz

Omid Team training is at full throttle.

Omid team is actively preparing for the crucial AFC U23 Championship 2020  by conducting constant practice sessions under the direction of Hamid Estili.

Today’s (Sunday) session which started at 9:30, Hamid Estili briefed the players on the objectives and details of today’s practice session. Then Mohammad Sharifi, Sina Zamiran and Mohammed Mohebbi left the group to conduct the fitness tests which all other players went undertook.

The training of the rest of the squad started with all members of the technical staff supervising the proceedings and giving the required tactical and technical advice.

This session which was carried out in the National Football Training Center included a light physical program. The next practice is scheduled for tonight at 9 pm.

Meanwhile, Omid Noorafkan and Mohammad Mohebbi (Sepahan) Reza Shekari and Mohammad Reza Azadi (Tractorsazi) Aref Aghasi and Mojtaba Najarian (Foolad Khuzestan) Ali Shojaei and Reza Dehghani (Nasiji Mazandaran) Ali Shahsavari and Mohammad KhodabandehLo (Peykan) and Sina Zamehran (Shar Khodro ) have joined the squad after their respective teams released them to Omid team.

Mohammad Mehdi Khani who plays for the Croatian side  NK Varaždin will also join the Omid (Olympic) squad on Monday.

“The initial list of Olympic team players, including 50 players, according to the AFC’s regulations. ” Hamid Estili said on the eve of the training camp’s inauguration. “After shortlisting the number to 30, the squad departs to  Qatar, where we will have an 8-day training camp and two friendly matches in Doha.”

“After returning to Tehran, we will announce the list of the final 23 players which form the Omid Team that will be competing in the AFC Asian Championship also the Olympic qualifiers scheduled to be held in Thailand. In some of the posts, we are still looking for the final option, such as the right-back, which was vacated due to the injury to  Aghajanpour and we are reviewing the names of 1 or 2 options to decide the final squad,” Estili added.

The coach of the Omid team once again called on the clubs to cooperate and assist with the team by saying: “Our plan during these 18 months of engagement was comprehensive. We tried to invite players for training or matches in FIFA days. We were aware of their special circumstances and situation, but at this juncture we expect the clubs to understand our situation too. Invited players will return to the clubs before the 16th week but after the end of the week it is necessary for the clubs to abandon their squads and allow our training to start. There are legal measures we can refer to, of course, but there should not be such issues among colleagues, and we need to all work in a friendly manner. I am sure my good colleagues at the clubs are on the side of the Omid team, preferring the national interest to everything else and helping us at this point.”

Amir Hossein Peyrovani added to Omid coaching team.

Amir Hossein Peyrovani has been appointed as Omid team coach under Hamid Estili.

The 50 years old former Bargh Shiraz player who comes from a well-known footballing family has previously coached Iran’s U 20 for two years and Omid Team from 2017 to 2018 with limited success. He faced a lot of criticism while at the helm of Omid team with some describing him as being out of depth.

He was operating as Assistant Coach to Mustafa Denizli in Tractorsazi Tabriz before his appointment to Omid Team.

Omid team is competing in the AFC Asian U23 Championship in Thailand in January 2020. The 3 top teams of that tournament will also qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games football competition.  Iran is in the most difficult group of the championship and experts do not consider their chances of qualification from the group as high.

Hamid Estili appointment as Coach of Omid Team, will he be any good?

After the resignation of Farhad Majidi, it seems that FFIRI had no real choice but to appoint the Team manager, Hamid Estili as his replacement. The former Persepolis player also picked his former teammates Reza Shahroodi and Alireza Emamifar as his assistants.

During the short tenure of Farhad Majidi at the helm of Omid’s team, Omid Namazi and Farshad Majedi were appointed as his assistants. It is not clear if they are is still or will remain as part of the coaching staff as neither have any Persepolis affiliation that seems to be the level of requirement in Omid team coaching structure with Estili in charge.

As such, the Omid team has turned into The red of Perspolis after the departure of the Blues of Esteghlal to prove once again that Iran’s football will have an extreme affinity with the bipolar and partisan system.

At Omid team the status quo remains, meaning the same old chaos, with partisan, Favoritism, nepotism and partiality based upon being part of a favoured group, rather than job performance or competency being the essence.

Estili has more experience than Majidi but his coaching career has been full of failures and turmoil. In reality, he is not much of an improvement on Majidi.

 

Estili Coaching Career

Estili was appointed as an assistant by Ali Parvin in Persepolis in 2004. A few months after Arie Haan replaced Parvin, he sacked Estili. In August 2006, when Mustafa Denizli was signed as the head coach, Estili returned to his former post. On 13th January 2007, during the 2006–07 mid-season break, Estili was sacked again, this time by Denizli.

Denizli later stated that “It would be better for him (Estili) to take some professional trainings”

For the 3rd time, Estili returned to his beloved club as the assistant to Afshin Ghotbi, in the IPL 2007/08 season. However, with a lot of tension between the two coaches over team selection, players, and other decisions it was foreseen that one of them will have to leave Perspolis at the end of the season. Ghotbi left and Estili was touted as the new Perspolis Manager and Head Coach.
However, when Ghotbi’s returned back, Estili left Perspolis.

in summer of 2009 Steel Azin appointed out of work Estili as head coach. Despite having a star-studded team with players such as s Ali Karimi, Mahdavikia, Kaebi, Fereydoon Zandi, Shapourzadeh and Vahedi Nikbakht, Estili failed in the Hazfi Cup and was nowhere near the championship title.

He was sacked by Estil Azin on 19 April 2010

Next station was Shahin Bushehr where he was appointed on 1 June 2010. He lasted less than 10 months as he was fired on 4 April 2011 while Shahin was in 17th place out of 18, achieving 16 points in 18 matches

On 21 June 2011, Estili was back in Persepolis again as a Head coach but after a series of disappointing results and Persepolis fans disapproval of his appointment, he resigned his post on 9th Dec. 2011 after only 6 months at the helm.

From then on, Estili’s reputation as a Head Coach was tarnished.

Critics say that Estili relies more on influences, comradeship and nepotism to cover his technical weakness and poor tactics on the field. He was a divisive influence as an assistant coach bad-mouthing the head coach in the hope of taking their places.  He caused disagreement and hostility between players to serve his own interest. It was not a successful strategy as it leads to him being sacked by 3 different coaches. While as Head Coach, his poor delivery, suspect decision-making, poor technical ability, and lack of quality were exposed at the teams he managed.

Such as shame for the player who is famous for his goal against the United States in the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Estili “No restrictions on selection of dual nationality players for Omid Team”

The director of the Omid team Hamid Estili announced that there is no restriction whatsoever for using Iranians who are born abroad or have dual citizenship for  Team Omid

Estili said: “I think we have proven quite firmly that there is no difference for us. There are a lot of dual citizenship players who are introduced to us every now and then. first of all, we review their legitimacy and age-appropriate conditions. If the player has the necessary qualifications as per international standards and FIFA rules and their performances are approved by the coaching team, there is no restriction on selecting them for the team. In the previous camps, we invited some players e conditions, and this time we are witnessing the presence of two other players. If they are deemed to be fit for the Omid Team a

and their standards are good enough then they will be part of the team. We want the best players to be selected for the Omid team.

Hamid Estili commented on the recently concluded training camp for Iran U23 team and said: “Fortunately, we had a great camp and we monitored the performance of all the players for 3 days. The technical staff was happy with the camp’s conditions, especially since some of these players were not invited. We tried to invite many of the players in the First and Second Division leagues even lower age groups leagues in the camp and evaluate their performance, which I think was a success. In my opinion, some of the players we saw in the camp can definitely help us and are invited to meet the needs of the technical staff.”

Farhad Majidi has been selected as the head coach of Omid team with the goal of qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics games.

 

Farhad Majidi appointed as head coach of Omid Team

After a long and desperate search for a replacement for Zlatko Kranjcar, the FFIRI has finally selected Farhad Majidi as the head coach

The Iranian Football Federation was hoping to appoint a competent replacement to lead the Omid Team after ending the contract of the Croatian head coach Zlatko Krancjar. In the past few months, various options have been considered to coach the U23 team, from Amir Ghalanoei, Alireza Mansourian , Mehdi MahdaviKia, Javad Nekounam to  Hossein Faraki. But all of these coaches refused to accept the offer.

The federation was on the brink of singing Yahya GolMohammadi, but his club did not allow him to leave, as he was still under contract with Padidah. Mehdi Taj and Hamid Estili, the technical manager of Omid, eventually negotiated with Farhad Majidi, who was out of work, to be the new head coach. Estili confirmed the selection of Majidi in a statement to the media. The team must start preparation for the final rounds of AFC U23 Championship Thailand 2020 which is also the qualifying round of the Olympics Games Men football competition as well as being the U23 Asian Championship. The final rounds will be played in a tournament style in Bangkok, Ciang Mai, Pathum Thani and Songkhala.

Farhad Majidi is the least experienced of all the other candidates who turned the job down. He has only a few games under his arm as a head coach of Esteghlal after he was given the temporary post at the club following the departure of the German coach Schaefer.

Thus the football federation continues its tendency to appoint raw and unproven coaches for the Omid U23 team and hoping to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Iran U23 qualified as one of the second best teams after hosting the qualifiers in Tehran and finishing second to Iraq in the group.

The tournament will start in January 2020 with 4 groups consisting of 4 teams. The first two of each group qualify for the quarter finals. Asia has 3 spots in the Olympic Games.  

The Draw

The 16 teams are drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams are seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Thailand automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4
1.    Thailand(hosts)

2.    Uzbekistan

3.    Vietnam

4.    Qatar

 5.    South Korea

6.    Iraq

7.    Japan

8.    North Korea

 9.    China PR

10. Australia

11. Jordan

12. Saudi Arabia

 13. Syria

14. Iran

15. United Arab Emirates

16. Bahrain

MahdaviKia turns down Omid Coach job offer!

With Yahya GolMohammadi’s declining, the Football federation officials face a serious problem in appointing a head coach for the Omid Olympic team.

At the moment, there is no coach who is willing to take over from Kranjcar for the next major challenge of Omid Team.

Indeed, it’s safe to say that the FFIRI has run out of Options. There is also no hope for solution coming from the Olympic Committee. After the departure of Zlatko Krancjar, Mehdi Taj talked about replacing the Croat with a local talent and choosing an Iranian coach to lead the team of Olympics hopefuls. Hamid Estili’s main responsibility was to pick the right person for the difficult task, however one candidate after another declined the offer by the FFIRI.

The latest name that turned down the job is Mehdi MahdaviKia, who has already received his ‘A’ coaching License  from UEFA after the completion of the coaching course and has instead decided to go on vacation with his family.

 Mahdavikia, who has experience working with young footballers in his own academy as well as the Hamburg base teams and is popular with the general public, could be a good option, but he also rejected the federation’s proposal.

Mahdavikia, a household name in his own right and in response to Estili, did not believe that the current environment in Iran’s football to be accommodating and supportive to his appointment.

On the other hand, Yahya Golmohammadi and Amir Ghalenoei the two heavy weight candidates who coach in league title contenders clubs , did not fancy what would look like a downgrade to coach Omid team.

The pre-mature news of Yahya Golmohammadi’s announcement was not a clever move by the federation, as the coach has already agreed terms for a two years extension with improved pay with his club.

In this situation, some members of the technical committee of the federation, proposed to Hamid Estili to take over the job himself, but Estili does not want to do anything at all with coaching the team, preferring that a competent coach takes over the task.

In desperation, Mehdi Taj and Hamid Estili, the Team manager,  may well be forced into looking at lower tier names and not so successful Iranian coaches to take over the Omid Team Job. A practice that has proved disastrous not so long ago.

It was said that there are now some options to guide Omid team, which might not be acceptable to the fans and critics. Some of those caches have not fared well in their clubs and are not exactly too popular either.

It is feared that the final selection of a coach will be a disappointment with forced selection of weaker options. Omid Team barely made it to the finals in Thailand under Kranjcar who is a veteran coach with lots of international exposure. Anything less than him will mean a certain failure for Iran U-23 team to reach the Olympics for the first time in over four decades.

Omid starts with a win – Iran U23 3 -1 Turkmenistan U23

Iranian U-23 Omid Team commenced its long road to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics football competition with a victory against Turkmenistan at Azadi Stadium on Friday.

Iran won 3-1 with goals scored by an own goal, Omid Noorafkan and Reza Jabierah

Although Omid won with a two goal margin, it was far from an easy game and the result was too flattering for the host with Turkmenistan , a persistent and strong team giving the host a run for their money. All the goals of the match were scored from set pieces.

At the Azadi Stadium, about 1,000 fans watched this game with the majority obviously opting to spend the Nowrooz holidays away from football.

Iran Omid Team,  already aware of the result of the earlier game between Iraq and Yemen, with the former comprehensively winning 5-0,  seems to be in urgency to open the scoring early. However, poor organization & finishing, smart defending by Turkmenistan and generally uncertain game plan, they could not reach the opponent’s goalkeeper except for a few times. While the Iranian players failed to score, it was a friendly fire which did the job for them. In the 35th minute a ball cleared from the goal line hit a Turkmen defender and it deflected back into his own goal, 1-0 to Iran.

This was result by the end of a scruffy first half in which the Omid team was far from impressive or organized.

In the second half, Iran appeared to be more calculated and calmer perhaps as the result of the pip talk by the coach. There were no more ideas of an easy win against a stubborn and physically stronger Turkmen team.

However, against the run of play , Iran was awarded a free kick in a perfect area just behind the box in the 53rd minute. The resulting free kick was beautifully dispatched by Captain Omid Noorafkan, whose shot penetrated the defensive wall and hit the far left corner of the goalkeeper

While Iran was happy to play out the game with a 2 goal lead, Turkmenistan hit out.

In the 74th minute, Turkmenistan got a corner kick, which was met by the towering Giordonov who headed the ball beautifully to the left of Meraj Esmaeili in Iran’s goal reducing the margin to a minimum. Suddenly, it was game on and Iranians started panicking.

In the remaining 15 minutes, Omid team played a defensive game thus inviting more pressure from the opponents, who were the more likely team to score the equalizer.

Iranian players were more concerned with maintaining the result than attacking and despite venturing forward on limited occasions, one such attacks ended up with a free kick

It was late in the game  when lady luck saved Iran. The Turkmen goalkeeper failed to hold a ball from the resultant free kick and the ball dropped in front of the Reza Jebeirah who headed from close range to score Iran’s third and seal the game.

While the result of the match was quite satisfactory for Omid Team , the performance was far from it. This team looks incoherent at best and has no natural leader in the field. Perhaps the relatively young age of the majority is one factor. There is distinct lack of maturity in their football with silly and uncalled for showboating such as scissor kicks in impossible situations, back heel passes that did not work or excessive dribbling by Ghaedi who looks like typical back-alley footballer.

One noticeable observation on the Iran bench was the number of people sending instruction to players. At one stage, it looked like Hamid Estili was the head coach with his touchline instructions, then it was the turn of Reza Sharoudi and even Chalangar, who is Kranjcar’s interpreter got on the act !!!

The team is definitely a work in progress which needs a lot of improvement. On Sunday, there will be an easy game against Yemen which they expect to win, but the last match against Iraq is far from easy

Iran U-23 Line up:

Meraj Ismaili; Alireza Arta, Mohammad Aghajanpour, Sina Zadmehran, Mohammad Moslempour, Mehdi Mahdikhani, Omid Noorafkan, Vahid Namdari (78 AbolFazl Razaghpour), Mehdi Ghaedi, Amir Roustaei (63 Reza Jabierah) and Mohammad Reza Azadi