Tag: Olympics Games 2020

Omid team announced

The list of Omid football team preparing for participation in the Olympic qualifiers was announced. Head coach Reza Enayati and his coaching staff selected these players for the training camp starting Thursday.

The list includes:

Sina Saidifar, Sina Ghasemi, Ali Asghar Sadeghi, Saman Turanian, Mohammad Reza Khaledabadi, Amin Hizbavi, Ali Pourdara, Allahyar Sayadmanesh, Mohammad Ghorbani, Aria Yousefi, Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad, Payam Parsa, Saman Fallah, Amir Jafari, Mohammad Reza Bardbar, Aria Barzgar, Taha Tabatabai, Mohammad Hossein Eslami, Hossein Guderzi, Alireza Bavieh, Mehdi Ahmadi, Yassin Salmani and Daniyal Iri

Team Omid’s camp will start at noon Thursday at Evin Parsian Hotel in Tehran, Amongst the invitees, there will be two absentees Amin Hizbavi playing in Al Sadd in Qatar, and Allahyar Sayyadmanesh who plays in the English Championship.

It is not clear if their respective clubs will release the players for this competition. Iran failed to qualify for the Olympics since 1980 (43 years back).

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.

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.

 

Zlatko Krancjar ” I left Iran because of sanctions”

The former head of the Iran Omid  (U23) team believes the sanctions imposed on Iran were the reason for his departure from the team, something that has caused other Iranian teams to face difficulties.

The Croatian coach Zlatko Krancjar ended his partnership with Iran’s Omid team and is now back in his own country, according to ISNA. The coach who held several coaching posts in Iran including leading Persepolis and Sepahan in Iranian football league, in discussion about his departure from the Iran team said “I could not continue to work in Iran because of the sanctions. Everything is determined by money, and because of sanctions, Iran’s sport, especially football, is in suffering severely.”

“The administration of the national teams at all age group levels is dependent on the on the government and the state of which it is willing to support, so it is not possible to improve the situation,” he continued. “In any case, I have been in Iran for 6 years and I thoroughly enjoy that period and enjoyed Iran. In Sepahan, I was able to win two trophies. In the Omid team of Iran, I also got good results in the Olympic qualifiers were we qualified for the finals. I’d better rest now.  Also notice that , Winfred Schaefer also left Iran. Branco Ivankovic , who has won three championships in a row and has been in the AFC Champions League final, is facing some financial problems.”

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.