Tag: Syria

Azadi is confirmed as the venue for the Syria game, without the fans!

After several years of struggles and follow-ups, Tehran is finally confirmed as the host of Iran’s home matches in the FIFA World Cup 2022  Qatar in the qualifying round.

Shahabuddin Azizi Khadem, said about the plans of the national football team: “an important event just happened after years as we finally gained our right to host the first game against Syria in Tehran, which can help Team Melli a lot.”

Azizi Khadem, then went on to brief the reporters about the preparation plans for the game He added: “With intensive and scientific planning in the new management of the federation and the official support that we have realized, it is now possible for our fans to watch their national team in a competitive match. A lot of effort has been made in this regard. I would also like to thank the Radio and Television Organization for its excellent cooperation with us in this regard. We have set up a special staff to prepare for the World Cup, and Mr. Foroughi is present on behalf of the IRIB. We hope that other government officials will be added to the committee in our headquarters. Football is the manifestation of our national unity.”

The president of the federation said ” all the work of the issue of visa to attend for the Syrian delegation has been carried out and handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Syrian team will arrive on Monday, August 28th. Observers and the refereeing team will also travel to Tehran. Everything is well planned and we are all ready for the game in Azadi against Syria.”

Azizi Khadem then carried on praising the effort of his management is arranging the match in Azadi, suggesting that many countries have been deprived of hosting due to Covid19.

Regarding fans’ attendance, Azizi Khadem stated regarding the presence of spectators in the matches hosted by Iran: in consultation with AFC, which has its own restrictions,  in order to comply with the regulations and satisfy the public opinion, it is unlikely that the fans will be allowed.

“After that, we have to travel to Doha, and the third game is in the UAE and the fourth game is here against South Korea, we will probably be able to allow those who were vaccinated with a special card to gain entry. “

The president of the FFIRI substituted the fans who are customarily considered as the 12 players at home games, with the Head of IRIB!!!

He said: “The twelfth friend was the emphasis of the president of the Radio and Television Organization”

Aziz Khadem’s praise to the head of IRIB that has never paid a single dollar for TV broadcast rights and practically owes football tens of millions of dollars in back pay is a true sound of desperation in a country where the one and only broadcaster considers itself above the law.

This time, there was no other option. It was either IRIB pays for the broadcast to AFC and FIFA or Iran will not be granted any rights to play its home game in Tehran. It is not clear if FIFA is compensated by IRIB for illegally broadcasting official matches without paying the right.

Team Melli jumps 5 places in FIFA Ranking.

Iran’s Team Melli jumped 5 places up to reach the world 26th in the latest FIFA World Ranking published today, Thursday.

with 1522 points, Iran sits behind Japan who is up to 24th in the world, and 7 points more than Iran. This ranking of Iran, one of the highest in many years, has been achieved with a perfect record of results in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Second Round qualifiers. All the matches played in Bahrain with Iran managing to get 4 out of 4 wins.

The Korea Republic, which shares Iran’s group in the third round qualifier of the World Cup, is in 4th place in Asia and ranked 36 in the world with 1475 points. UAE, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon follow in Ranking. Amongst the 6 teams of Group A of the third round qualifiers. Lebanon has dropped 18 points while Syria dropped a single point in the new ranking.

AFC
FIFA

Country
Total Points
 Previous PTS +/-
1
24
Japan
 Japan
1529
 1509 20
2
26
IR Iran
 Iran
1522
 1500 22
3
35
Australia
 Australia
1477
 1457 20
4
36
Korea Republic
 Korea Republic
1475
 1460 15
5
42
Qatar
 Qatar
1455
 1398 57
7 68 United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates 1362 1330 32
8 70 Iraq Iraq 1355 1353 2
11 80 Syria Syria 1303 1304 -1
16 98 Lebanon Lebanon 1238 1256 -18

Iraq football federation to protest FIFA’s decision.

The Iraqi Football Federation intends to sue the world football governing body FIFA for denying it hosting its matches at home citing security reasons.

FIFA’s decision to deprive the country of hosting the World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifiers. In a letter to the Iraqi Football Federation yesterday, FIFA stated that the country could not host its World Cup qualifiers due to its security situation, and therefore should nominate a third country to host the home matches. FIFA’s decision has been met with objections from the Iraqi Football Federation, to the extent that they intend to sue the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The Iraqi website also wrote that in the second step, the Iraqi Football Federation intends to ask FIFA and the AFC to hold a return match between Iran and Iraq at the Basra Stadium, which is scheduled to take place in Iraq. However, the Iraqi Sports website wrote that the federation has introduced Qatar as its host to FIFA for the first time, but will try to persuade FIFA to reverse this decision.

The chances of Iraq hosting its home games are slim as the CAS hearing normally takes a long time and chances are that the qualifiers will be over by the time a ruling is issued.

Iraq is in Group A of the World Cup Qatar 2022 third-round qualifiers along with Iran, Korea Rep., Syria, Lebanon, and UAE

Iran granted hosting World Cup qualifiers matches.

Team Melli will host its home matches in the third qualifying round of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in Tehran.

According to the FIFA website, the venue for Iran’s first match against Syria is Azadi Stadium. FIFA has chosen Azadi to put an end to the speculations over the past few days and weeks about the hosting being taken away from Iran. Thus, Team Melli will play all five home matches in Tehran if the matches are played are to be played on Home and Away format rather than a round-robin tournament in a single country.

FIFA prefers home and away because it has always been played in this format since the inception of the tournament. There have been the odd times that teams played in a single venue, especially in Aisa due to logistics, but Home and Away is the standard that FIFA likes to adhere to.

The scenario of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is different, which has always been to deprive Iran of hosting its matches. These politically motivated moves are the results of Gulf Arab countries lead by Saudi Arabia, both to uphold its hostility towards Iran and also to gain an unfair advantage on the pitch!

In the second qualifying round of the World Cup, Bahrain was chosen as a host.  FIFA also agreed to approve Jordan to host Syrian national matches, but the venue for the Iraq Games has not yet been determined yet and it is not clear in which country Iraq will host its opponent in the qualifiers including the Iranian national team.

This arrangement could be nullified if FIFA or the governments of the participating teams apply strict entry conditions as a result of COVID19.

Nizar Mahrous appointed as Head Coach of Syria

The former Syrian National team star and current coach Nizar Mahrous has been officially appointed as the head coach of Syria.

The Syrian Football Association decided to appoint Nizar Mahrous to succeed the Tunisian Nabil Maaloul who reigned after the federation failed to pay his wages. The Federation said in an official statement, published today, Wednesday: “After the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Syrian Arab Football Association, three days ago, and after studying and discussing the names proposed by the Technical Department, the Coaches Committee, and the National Teams Committee, and after communicating with the proposed names, it was decided to appoint Nizar Mahrous as Technical Director (Head Coach) .

Mahrous (58 years) was approached by the federation immediately after the departure of Maaloul, however, after the negotiations reached advanced stages, the former national Team player agreed. It is expected that Mahroos’s assistant technical and administrative staff will be announced at the end of next week.

This is the second stint of Mahrous with The Syrian National Football Team. In May 2011, Mahrous was appointed manager of Syria. On 24th August 2011, he quit after FIFA disqualified Syria from the 2014 World Cup qualifiers for fielding an ineligible player.

Mahroos, who has previously trained several local and Arab teams and achieved good results with them, has a very difficult task ahead, as he will lead the Syrian team in the third qualifying round for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. The Syrian team’s group included Iran, South Korea, the Emirates, Iraq, and Lebanon.

There was no mention of the contract details

Carlos Queiroz set to lead Iraq.

The former Team Melli head coach will aim to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar with Iraq, a feat that has failed the Iraqis for 35 years.

Carlos Queiroz is the No. 1 candidate to lead the Iraq team, in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, after the team parted with coach Srecko Katanec.

Srecko Katanec has led the Iraqi team since 2018, helping the team qualify for the 2019 Asian Cup as well as advance to the final qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup. However, on July 15, he decided to leave the Iraqi team after 6 months without receiving a salary.

Very quickly, the Iraqi Football Federation targeted the famous coach Carlos Queiroz as a replacement. The Portuguese born in 1953 is currently unemployed, after terminating his job with the Colombian team in December 2020.

Carlos Queiroz is one of the most famous coaches in the world. He led the Portuguese team with Ronaldo to the 2010 World Cup. After that, he had 8 years with Team Melli, achieving a historic back-to-back qualification to the World Cup 2014 and 2018. Before that, he also twice. helped Portugal’s U20 team win the FIFA U20 World Cup in 1989 and 1991.

Carlos Queiroz is likely to lead the Iraqi team to the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. Photo: Twitter Iraqi Football Federation.
Carlos Queiroz is likely to lead the Iraqi team to the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. Photo: Twitter Iraqi Football Federation.

At the club level, Carlos Queiroz worked as an assistant to Alex Ferguson at Man United in his prime. In addition, he also had a season as a coach of Real Madrid, with the team winning the Spanish Super Cup.

According to local media, Carlos Queiroz is excited about the prospect of leading the Iraqi team. However, he also asked the Iraqi Football Federation to pay him 80% of his salary in advance, which is expected to be up to 1.75 million USD/year. It is expected that this week, the two sides will agree on the final terms.

In the final qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup, Iraq is in Group A with Iran, South Korea, UAE, Syria, and Lebanon. They will open the World Cup qualifying campaign with a match against South Korea away on September 2. On September 9, they will meet Iran at home. Historically, Iraq has only attended the World Cup once, in 1986.

GROUP A: Iran rivals historical data review

With the draw of the third round concluded in Kuala Lumpur AFC headquarters, Iran has been grouped with Korea Rep., Syria, Iraq, UAE, and Lebanon.

While navigating this group of teams is not as easy as it looks on paper, the historic data supports Iran and draws a clear picture of superiority against its rival, the exception being South Korea which the teams are neck to neck on records.

Iran has played a total of 114 matches against these 5 teams with a percentage of wins set at 57%. Only 15% of the matches ended in a loss against these rivals.

The latest team that defeated Iran in any match was Iraq back in the 2nd round. UAE never won against Iran in official competition matches.

 

Korea Rep.
H / A / N Matches W D L Goals + / –
H 7 5 2 0 10 – 03 7
A 11 3 6 2 08 – 08 0
N 13 5 1 7 15 – 22 -7
Total 31 13 9 9 33 – 33 0
Syria
H / A / N Matches W D L Goals + / –
H 13 6 6 1 29 – 10 19
A 8 5 3 0 10 – 03 7
N 7 4 3 0 08 – 03 5
Total 28 15 12 1 47 – 16 31

Lebanon
H / A / N Matches W D L Goals + / –
H 4 4 0 0 14 – 0 14
A 5 3 1 1 11 – 02 9
N 1 1 0 0 2 – 0 2
Total 10 8 1 1 27 – 02 25

Iraq
H / A / N Matches W D L Goals + / –
H 12 9 1 2 19 – 08 11
A 3 2 1 0 04 – 01 3
N 14 6 5 3 17 – 12 5
Total 29 17 7 5 40 – 21 19

UAE
H / A / N Matches W D L Goals + / –
H 5 4 1 0 4 – 0 4
A 7 5 1 1 13 – 04 9
N 4 3 1 0 7 – 0 7
Total 16 12 3 1 24 – 04 20

OVERALL RESULTS
P W D L GF GA
114 65 32 17 171 76
57% 28% 15%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last meetings

Iraq 15-06-21 WC Qualifier N 1 – 0 16 Days
Syria 03-03-21 Friendly H 3 – 0 3 Months
Korea Rep 11-06-19 Friendly A 1 -1 2 years
UAE 19-01-15 Asian Cup H 1 – 0 6 years
Lebanon 19-11-13 Asian Cup Qlfy H 4 – 1 7 Years

 

Loss records

In the same FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Team Melli has suffered its last loss. Surprisingly Lebanon was the latest team that has defeated Team Melli again in the World Cup qualifiers but that was 8 years ago. The third-ranked defeat came from Kore Rep in the quarter-finals of the AFC Asian Cup 2011 in Qatar and that was 11 years ago.

The record of the last defeat goes to Syria which managed its only win against Iran in the Qualifiers some 48 years ago.

 

TEAM MATCH DATE YEARS Result Competition
IRAQ 14-11-2019 1.5 1 – 2 World Cup QLFY
LEBANON 11-09-2012 8 0 – 1 World Cup QLFY
KOREA REP 22-01-2011 10 0 – 1 ASIAN CUP
UAE 02-09-1997 23 1 – 3 FRIENDLY
SYRIA 15-05-1973 48 0 – 1 World Cup QLFY

 

 

An exciting draw for Iran.

If there was an easier draw in the final round of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, then Iran has possibly the better group of the two.

Not only the opponents are well known for Team Melli but the logistics will be that much easier with 4 neighbors per se with the only long-distance travel being Korea. The most familiar team is Iraq which Iran recently defeated in the second round to qualify for the final round.

Korea will remain the most serious of the group contenders. The star-studded team of the Koreans have qualified for the World Cup 10 times and is well-positioned to make it number 11 along with Iran.

the four Arab countries in the group stand an equal chance of qualifying. Although Syria was the best performer of the four teams in the second round, it will be difficult for the Syrians to repeat this performance in the third round, especially since they lost their head coach the Tunisian Nabil Maaloul.

Iraq will always remain a strong team despite the difficult circumstances surrounding the team. In the draw ceremonies, the Slovenian coach of Iraq national Team Katanec was absent while doing the after-draw interviews. That does not augur well for the coach who is on shaky ground. It is not clear if he will be continuing with the team.

UAE was trailing Vietnam in the group until the last day. However, a great awakening in the last match, pushed UAE to a win against Vietnam to head the group and qualify directly to round three. UAE is a well know opposition to Iran but has never defeated Team Melli. UAE also remains a favorite away venue to Iran.

Lebanon was perhaps the luckiest team of the group but by no mean the punching bag. Their performance in the group with Korea was quite admirable. Although their chance of qualifying is minimal, they do represent a challenge for the others especially the lower ranked group teams. The economic situation of Lebanon would be the biggest off-field challange to their preparations for the third round.

IRAN 3 – 0 SYRIA

Team Melli defeated Syria 3-0 in an international friendly held in Azadi Stadium on Tuesday. Iran scored through Hossein Kanan-Zadegan, Sardar Azmouin, and Karim Ansarifard. The first half ended 2-0

Team Melli scored early in the first minute from a corner played by Ali Gholiszadeh. Central defender Hossein Kanano-Zadegan hit a ferocious header into the top of the Syrian net to open the scoring for Iran. Soon Iran took control of the play and could have easily doubled the scoreline. However, a lazy play by Azmoun who only had the diving Syrian keeper in front wasted a golden chance. After that miss by Azmoun, Syria slowly but surely took control of the game. Their midfield was more energetic than Iran and seem to have pace in the front line. The Iranian defense was solid however and only a brilliant save by Alireza Beiranvand, prevented Syria from scoring.

Although Beiravand’s one-hand save was brilliant and an eye-candy, his assist for the second goal was an absolute gem. After catching the ball on the edge of his box and with a Syrian player budging him, Beiravand noticed Taremi free in the Syrian half. His world-class hand throws reached Porto’s defender who took the ball nicely towards the Syrian goalkeeper. Ibrahim Alma saved with his extended legs only for the ball to rebound for the onrushing Azmoun who made no mistake with and slotted the ball into the net.

The second half saw a more balanced game between the two teams. Despite gallant efforts by the Syrians, they did not manage to seriously threaten Beiranvand until late in the game when their best attacker Mahmood Al Mawas hit a thunderous shot against the bar the resulting in the ball ricochet into play and cleared by the defenders.

On the hours and as usual, both teams saw many substitutions. The Team Melli midfield was strengthened by the introduction of Omid Ebrahimi. in the 81st minute, Karim Ansarifard scored a brilliant third goal as he got the ball and in one swift Shimmy send two of his markers the wrong way opening the goal for him. His powerful shot was beyond Syrian keeper Ibrahim Alma as he was beaten comprehensively by Karim’s cracker. 3-0 for Iran.

Team Melli introduced two new debutants in this match. Jafar Salmani was the right-back, while Abofazl Jalali was substituted in the left-back position. Both played quite well as it was a successful introduction and should create very tough competition for the senior players.

The only concern in Iran’s lineup must be the midfield. Until the mid-second half, the Iranian midfield players (Hajsafy, Nourallahi , Amiri, and Gholizadej did not create enough chances for the two potent and dangerous forwards of Team Melli. One goal came from a corner and one from an assist by goalkeeper Beiranvand. That is not good enough for a team looking to qualify in a tough World Cup qualifiers group.

Third test for Dragan Skocic

Team Melli and will face Syria in an international friendly today (Tuesday) at 17:30 in Azadi Stadium as part of the preparation for the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifiers.
In recent years, Iran and Syria have faced each other in various competitions. The matches between the two teams in the World Cup qualifier in Russia in both round-trip matches ended in a draw, but with the change of Iran’s training cadre and the arrival of Wilmots, Team Melli inflicted a heavy 5-0 defeat to the Syrians in a friendly match.
Since then, the coaches of both teams have changed and now Syria is in a much better position than Iran in the World Cup qualifiers.

Iranian national team
Dragan Skocic will have his third coaching experience with Team Melli against Syria. He has already managed to achieve a perfect record with two victories in two matches defeating Uzbekistan and Bosnia. The Croatian coach’s whole effort is to prepare a team of the best Iranian players to claim a place in the World Cup qualifiers next round and defeat both Iraq and Bahrain in order to clinch one of the places.
With the exception of a few players who were unable to accompany the national team due to injuries or travel restrictions during the spread of the Coronavirus, Skocic has invited most of the top players inside and outside Iran, although as always there have been criticisms in some posts.


However, the return of Taremi, Azmoun, Beiranvand, etc. to the national team in this camp compared to the earlier one is good news for the fans of Team Melli who always want to see a full-strength team in action. As in previous camps, the Croatian coach has invited several young and lesser-known players, and it remains to be seen what the consequences of their presence in the national team will be.

Given Bahrain hosting the third qualifying group for the World Cup in Asia, Skocic and his team are working very hard to advance to the next stage and must use the same friendly games to increase the quality and preparation of the national team.

Syrian national team
The Syrian national team recently played a friendly match against Bahrain, and lost 3-1, with some Syrian media and fans criticizing their coach. However, Nabil Maaloul, who has a track record of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup with the Tunisian national team, has achieved brilliant results in the first group of the World Cup together with Syria and is in first place above China.

Syria has almost reached the third round of the World Cup and is now preparing for the toughest stage of the tournament to complete the unfinished work of the previous round. They lost four years ago in their last World Cup qualifier against Uruguay and failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Omar Al-Suma (due to injury) and Omar Al-Kharbin (lifelong suspension from the national team) are not present in this match as two prominent strikers, but other main Syrian players have come to Tehran. This meeting is very important for Syria in terms of results and readiness.