Tag: Jakarta

Jakarta Asian Games- Football groups to be re-drawn!

According to the Mehr news agency and the  FFIRI website, the UAE and Palestine were not included in the first groups draw.

It is said that the two countries have completed their registration process correctly and in accordance with the rules of the Asian Game.  However, their names were dropped!  To correct this, the organizing committee will arrange the second lot  which will be held with 26 countries.

Based on this, the new draw will be held July 23rd of July in Jakarta.

In the previous draw, Iran U23 team was in Group F along with Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and North Korea. North Korea  is the winner of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.

Asian Games Men Football matches are played by teams with under the age of 23. Each team can have up to three players over the age range with Wildcard entering the game.

The Asian Games 2018 will begin on August 27, but the men’s soccer games will begin on August 23rd.

Zlatko Kranjcar is a leading candidate to coach Omid team.

The Iranian Football Federation is considering the appointment a head coach of Iran’s U23 (Omid) team to prepare and represent the country in the Asian Games 2018  Jakarta, although the team has already wasted a lot of opportunity, as the FFIRI Technical Committee should have selected a coach last month.

Federation officials have been negotiating with some domestic and foreign coaches during the past few days. Even the president of the federation, Mahdi Taj, told reporters yesterday that the talks are continuing, and this week the coach’s name will be announced.

The former head coach of the Sepahan squad Zlatko Krancjar, who failed to meet expectations this season with the Esfahani club, is one of the main choices for the federation, and even the Football Federation’s secretary Mohammad Reza Saket had talks with the Croatian coach.

FFIRI has always been a failure with the U23/U22 teams. For some odd reason, they have never managed to get their acts together at this age level and seem to have some complex on how to deal at this age level football teams. Most of the problems are self-inflicted, though including their chronic late preparation, and last minute search for a coach and finally poor preparations.

Krancjar, who has arrived in Tehran for a few days, is a favorite with the Federation officials who have started serious talks with him. It was confirmed that a meeting was carried out with federation officials in one of the hotels in Tehran, but the results are not clear.

Krancjar was the main choice to be the head coach of the Omid team in in December 2014 under the leadership of Habib Kashani, but the blatant intervention of the Ministry of Sports who claimed that the Croat does not conform for ethical/religious values (…), eventually meant that the federation so dependent on the government, had to shelve the idea of recruiting Karanjcar. Th coaching of the team was given to the novice coach Mohammad Khakpour, who failed to achieve anything and also failed to qualify for the Olympics.