Tag: Mehdi Torabi

Team Melli defeats Nicaragua in Azadi.

Iran’s last home game before the FIFA World Cup ended up in a mundane 1-0 win for Team Melli. Torabi scored the only goal in the First half.

Nicaragua, ranked 120 steps below Iran, managed to limit World Cup-bound Team Melli to two shots on target in the entire 90 minutes +, one of which ended up in a goal.

Behind the closed door and playing with mostly domestic league players, there was little to be gained from the World Cup preparations perspective, except for perhaps some last-chance look by Queiroz and his coaching staff on which domestic league players will make it on the plane to Doha

Playing weaker teams, however, had always been a risk and that proved true this time against Nicaragua. Omid Ebrahimi, one of the veterans of the team and almost certain to be included in the World Cup squad, left the field of play after only a minute or two from being substituted in, falling a victim to a clumsy challenge by the Nicaraguan player. He was treated on the field but then left on a stretcher. His conditions looked serious enough for him, to miss the World Cup.

The goal scored by Mehdi Torabi in the 15th minute was perhaps the only decent move by Team Melli in the entire match. Noorafkan gifted an accurate pass to Torabi who beautifully controlled the ball while neatly wrong-footing his marker, before slotting powerfully into the Nicaraguan goal.

The rest of the match was concentrated mostly in the middle of the field. Surprisingly, the Nicaraguan players seemed to be the more energetic of the two sets of players. Coming from tropical weather to Tehran, all of them protected themselves against the cold temperature by wearing gloves. However, they were more energetic than Team Melli players despite their long trip. The guests were not shying from any tackles and challenged every ball, sometimes too roughly, and gave the host a run for their money.

On a positive note, Queiroz introduced 3 new young players by giving debuts to Aria Brazegar, Mehdi Hashemipor, and Ali Sadeghi. Barzegar who was on the starting lineup had a truly dreadful debut as he could not pass or shoot any decent ball. The others substituted in, however, showed some nice touches and enough confidence even daring to try long-range shots.

Team Melli meets Tunisia next. A much more serious challenge. However, the whole squad will be available by then.

22 Domestic League players invited to Team Melli camp.

Dragan Skocic announced the list of 22 players playing in the domestic League to attend the national team camp.

The 22 players will be in Team Melli’s mini-camp for five days to August 30th. With the announcement of the final list of the team for the games against Syria and Iraq in FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Qualifiers, most of the players on this list will be eliminated. Seven players from Esteghlal, five players from Persepolis, and Sepahan, three players from Gol Gohar, one player from Traktorsazi and  Foolad are forming the squad invited, which will realistically probably end up with not more than three of the original squad.

Zubair Niknafs, Mohammad Karimi, Mehdi Abdi, Saleh Hardani, Mohammad Hossein Moradmand, Ahmad Zandeh Rouh, Yasin Salmani are the players who will participate in the national team camp for the first time.

Individuals such as Arsalan Motahari, Shahriyar Moghanloo, Farshid Ismaili, Saeed Aghaei, Seyed Hossein Hosseini, Farshad Ahmadzadeh, Siavash Yazdani, had been invited to the national team for one or two camps in recent years. Also, one of the interesting points in this list is the return of Seyed Hossein Hosseini, who has replaced Rashid Mazaheri. Hosseini had a steady presence in the national camps for a while, but with a relative performance decline in the 19th and early 20th leagues, he was completely eliminated from the national team, but now he has taken the place of his rival in Esteghlal.

Esteghlal: (7) Hossein Hosseini, Aref Aghasi, Mohammad Hossein Moradmand, Farshid Ismaili, Amir Arsalan Motahhari, Zubair Nikonfas and Siavash Yazdani

Persepolis: (5) Saeed Aghaei, Vahid Amiri, Mehdi Torabi, Mehdi Abdi, and Milad Sarlak.

Sepahan Esfahan: (5) Omid Nourafkan, Yasin Salmani, Shahriyar Moghanloo,, Farshad Ahmadzadeh and Mohammad Karimi

Golgohar Sirjan: (3) Mehdi Tikdari, Armin Sohrabian, Ahmad Zenderooh.

TractorSazi: (1) Mohammad Reza Akhbari

Foolad Khuzestan: (1) Saleh Hardani

Squad announced for Qatar and China matches.

A 23 man squad was announced by Carlos Queiroz for the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2018 qualifiers against Qatar and China.

The most significant omission in th list is that of Ashkan Dejagah who is out of match practise due to an injury. The Wolfsburg midfielder has yet to feature for his club un the Bundesliga after the winter break.

Others who did not make the list are Mehdi Torabi, Morteza Tabrizi and  Masoud Hassanzadeh.

Team Melli will be leaving Tehran tomorrow Sunday on charter flight to Doha. After the match, the squad will be returning back to prepare for the china game.

List of 23 players

1 AKHBARI, Mohammad Reza GK
2 AMIRI, Vahid MF
3 ANSARI, Mohammad DF
4 ANSARI, Sasan FW
5 ANSARIFARD, Karim FW
6 AZMOUN, Sardar FW
7 BIRANVAND, Alireza GK
8 EBRAHIMI, Omid MF
9 EZZATOLLAHI, Saeid MF
10 GHAFOORI, Vourya DF
11 GHOOCHANNEJAD, Reza FW
12 HAJSAFY, Ehsan DF
13 HOSSEINI, Jalal DF
14 JAHANBAKHSH, AliReza MF
15 KARIMI, Ali MF
16 MAZAHERI, Mohammad Rashid GK
17 MOHAMMADI, Milad DF
18 MONTAZERI, Pejman DF
19 POURALIGANJI, Morteza DF
20 POURGHAZ, Ezzatollah DF
21 REZAEIAN, Ramin DF
22 SHOJAEI, Masoud MF
23 TAREMI, Mehdi FW

 

 

EHSAN PAHLAVAN ; a future star in the making.

One of the real revelation of the league season is the 22 years old Ehsan Pahlavan a left midfiled player who plays for Zob Ahan in the Persian Gulf League.

Born in Khorassan in the city of Bojnord, Pahlavan has been spotted playing for a small club in Mashhad. He was selected for Iran’s youth team and by 2012 he was a wanted player from several big clubs. It was Zob Ahan who finally won him over as Pahlavan finally selected Esfahan as his platform for fame,

The midfielder has shown maturity well beyond his age with some terrific performances at the highest club level competition in the AFC Champions league this season, he has truly announced his arrival at the international football scene.

pahlavan Ehsan

Pahlavan is not new to Team Melli jersey. He has already represented his country at several age levels in international and continental competitions. He has shown skills from early age and has been on Zob Ahan radar for a long time before signing him ahead of  other interested big clubs.

This season , Pahlavan was facing a stiff competition to break into the team where Kaveh Rezaei , Masoud Hassanzadeh , Morteza Tabrizi and veteran Mehdi Rajabzadeh  were all ahead of him in pecking order. However, not only did Ehsan show some real grit and skills beyond expectation, he forced himself upon coach Yahya Golmohammadi in all competitions by excellent commitments and performances.

Ehsan Pahlavan did not disappoint in all club competitions as he delivered some terrific games for Zob Ahan and some brilliant goals in the AFC Champions league to help his team qualify for the next round of the competition.

Carlos Queiroz, always with an eye for young talented players, has named him in the 32 list for the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2018 qualifiers.

Ehsan Pahlavan remains one of the best talents in Iranian football alongside names like Mehdi Torabi and Milad Mohammadi. His mature attitude and level headed approach to professional football would ensure that he will be one real prospect to look forward to.

Iran opens Rio Olympics 2016 qualifiers with victory.

Iran Omid team started the AFC Asian U-23 Championship 2016 on the right track by defeating Syria 2-0 in Doha, Qatar.

In the match that was played on Tuesday at Al Sadd stadium, which finished goalless in the first half, Amir Arsalan Motahari opened the scoring in the 63rd minute with a fine individual goal , while Mehrdad Mohammadi (71 minutes)  made it 2-0 with an excellent finish beating the Syrian keeper with a shot on the far end of his right.

Omid’s team performance, however, was from convincing. With 5 Team Melli players and along preparation including several camps and tournaments, the expectation from this team was much higher against a team that lacked preparation coming from a country which is war ravaged.

Knowing their limitation, It was clear that Syria was in the match for damage limitation. Their piling of the defense , sometimes as much as 8 players on two layers in front of their keepers, was meant to not to concede any goals and then hit Iran on the break. Iran’s Omid team midfield was far superior than the opposition and controlled the match at will, however, tension, lack of confidence and some poor passing spoiled any chance of Omid team translating this supremacy into goals that they deserved.

Failure to set up a string of 3 or more passes marred Iran Omid’s team game despite the poor standard of the opposition.

The second half goal scored by Motahari , beautifully slicing through the Syrian defense before hitting the keeper with a close range shot, augmented the team confidence. The passes started to flow much efficiently between the players. Mehdi Torabi was magnificent on the left flank majestically controlling , dribbling and with his burst of speed, passing the Syrians with ease.

It was only a matter of time before the second goal and more would be coming. Mehrdad Mohammadi was at the end of a beautiful diagonal pass from Karimi The Rah Ahan midfielder switched legs , control ed the ball and sent a powerful unstoppable shot to the far right end of Syrian keeper.

Iran could have easily scored another two in the last 15 minutes, but combination of complacency and poor concentration prevented a rout of the uninspiring Syrian team.

Despite the win, and the boost in the confidence, the teamwork needs much improvement against the much stronger next opposition; host Qatar on Friday. For the team to have a genuine chance of qualifying from this group, much work is needed. There was some fine individual performances by Omid Team  players, especially Mehdi Torabi, Mehrdad Mohammadi and Amir Arsalan Motahari, however , Khakpour has much work left to convert these talented players into a force to be reckoned with.

Team Melli players transfer market 2015/16.

The transfer window has opened in most of the leagues round the world and our focus , as usual has been the Team Melli players past and present.

It is safe to say that the movement of the Team Melli players was not exactly an earth shattering activity. Domestically, there has been very few transfers to talk about with most of the Team Melli players renewing their contracts with their current clubs.

In essence,  Team Melli players fall in three categories, The Young promising including rising stars, the established players, the twilight zone players.

ramin-rezaeian-28553

Young prospects: Most clubs hunt for bargains while pursuing young players. Iran is a big country and find the right talent in the right place is not something that can be considered a routine or easy task. Competition amongst the clubs can be become rough and messy at times each side pulling all the tricks up their sleeves. Players also take full advantage when faced with situation where there are multiple suitors. It is not uncommon to hear that a player has signed for two clubs or more in Iran!

The favorite destination of most of the young players is Esteghlal or Persepolis. The popularity of these two teams and the bi-partisan nature of football in Iran, puts these two teams at an unfair advantage. The two most popular clubs in Iran contribute very little if any in developing or producing young players themselves. However, they are at a vantage point when players, particularly young ones, come to them and consider it an honor to don the jerseys of the big two clubs.

However , now that Persepolis and Esteghlal have been facing dire cash shortage and are technically bankrupt , the attraction of these two teams is dwindling. Young aspiring players are more careful and vigilant although the appeal of these two names is still there.

Unfortunately, this season the number of players in this category is not too pleasing. Most would be staying put in their club like Mehdi Sharifi and Ali Karimi of Sepahan and Mehdi Torabi of Saipa. Ramin Rezaeian is the only one who has joined Persepolis from Rah Ahan , otherwise the lack of promising players is becoming of some concern amongst the coaches and experts.

Ando cute

Established players: most of the Team Melli players in this category have opted to stay with their clubs despite some of the clubs not honoring timely wage payments.  The odd ones who made the change include the Captain Ando Teymourian (Tractosazi to Umm Salal (QAT)) , Pejman Montazeri (Umm Salal (QAT) to Al Ahli (QAT)) , Daniel Davari (Grasshoppers to Arminia Bielefeld) , Mohammad Nouri (Persepolis to Al Mesaimer (QAT).

This category is also lacks exciting transfers or prospects of major changes.

The Twilight zone : Unfortunately , a number of current Team Melli squad fall in this category including Teymourian (32 years) whom we gave the benefit of the doubt as he is the Captain of the team. Jalal Hosseini (33 years), the Solid and always present central defender , did not renew his contract with Al Ahali of Qatar but surprisingly he was rejected by his first choice and favorite destination , Persepolis. Eventually he was recruited by Naft Tehran, but there were not many suitors chasing him either.

Masoud Shojaei (31 years), the perennial ever-present midfielder who has been struggling for many seasons with clubs of lower divisions, once again flopped but this time in Qatar not Spain. His team Al Shahaniya was relegated last season and as expected the Qatari’s found him to be a surplus to their requirement this coming season. Shojaei is currently negotiating with Persepolis. It is rumored that he will accept a huge pay cut in order to join the reds with no sign on fees demanded by the player.

Shojaei against Montenegro
Shojaei against Montenegro

So, it looks like 2015/2016 season will start with relative calm in the Team Melli squad, which could be a hidden advantage for Carlos Queiroz if not for the fans or the transfer market.

There are tough roads ahead. Guam , Oman and India will be ready to challenge Iran in the qualifying rounds of the FIFA World Cup 2018. As Team Melli players found out against Turkmenistan , it is not a forgone conclusion to win against such oppositions. Guam , in particular has made a tremendous progress and will be testing Iran, while Oman will always remain a tough nut to crack for Team Melli.

Minimum disturbance of the players may be just what the doctored ordered for Team Melli squad.