Report on the failings of youth football / main culprits are hiding!
By Mehr News Agency – Department of Sport:

Iran’s U-19 football team suffered a harsh defeat against South Korea and failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup U 20 tournament. The failure in this age group continues, this time the loss could be attributed to the coach Akbar Mohammadi , but the real culprits behind this defeat are in hiding.

The Iran youth team failures are becoming routine occurrences at this important age group level of football, this time the team was coached by Akbar Mohammadi failed at the very crucial stage. This young coach who failed to achieve anything of significance at the U-16 level two years ago, but with support from the Federation and the authorities, Carlos Queiroz has appointed him as the U-19 team coach !

These bitter failures are becoming a source of frustrations and real heart breaking for the fans and goes way back as far as 1976, the year that Iran won its last Asian Youth title. The team led by Heshmat Mohajerani , jointly won the championship  with North Korea. A year later,  the tournament was held at home in Tehran , and Iran ended up as runners-up  after being beaten in final against Iraq. That team was led by the Yugoslav “Yagvidic” . In 2000, Tehran hosted the tournament again and this time the team was coached by Mehdi Monajati , where we lost the third place match but managed to make it to the finals stages of FIFA Youth World Cup.

Iran’s youth have always produced quality players in the past 30 years, however, the results achieved have been unimaginable and inconsistent with the quality of the players. In the years 1982, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1998 and 2002 we even failed to qualify for the final tournament after failing in the qualifying rounds.  In recent years, the team was led by the likes of Majid Jalali, Brazilian De Oliviera , , The Croat Nenad Nikolić  , and Ali Doustimehr , all of whom failed not only to accomplish any titles, but they also contributed to some bitter disappointments to the Iranian youth football.

In the thirty-seventh edition of Asian Youth Championship, the AFC U-19 championship UAE 2012 , the case was different. Akbar Mohammadi and his boys completed some solid victories in the qualifying rounds and the group matches in the finals. Those victories have made us all very hopeful for the good days to come, but in one bad day the dream was destroyed and the team faltered.

This heavy and humiliating defeat against the Koreans was avoidable and in fact, Iran could have and should have been the victors. In spite of the good performance by the Korean players that has surprised the technical staff of our team, our players should have been able to score but they lacked the accuracy that is needed at this big stage.

Nevertheless, Akbar Mohammadi  failed again. He was highly motivated, he needed to be successful with the U-19 team to erase the bitter memories of his failure two years back with the U-16 team , but it was not to be. This repeated failure will surely trigger many critical voices about his competency and suitability to lead youth football teams at international stages. However , the real question must be directed at those who have appointed Mohammadi .

The people who try to remedy their error of judgment and poor selection process by giving the failed person, another key responsibility at the head of another youth team hoping for the guy to attempt and compensate for previous poor showing!

The victim here is Mohammadi , while the real culprits are those sectors who always seems to get away from blemish by hiding behind the scenes.

If after the failure of the U-16 team , no similar responsibility  were given  to the likes of Mohammadi, if those administrators who failed to execute their duty were fired as the result of their errors which cost our team qualification , if the disastrous  elimination of our Olympic team was properly handled through a transparent investigation and the culprits identified and disciplined , instead of giving them alternative posts, if and if…..

“If” …there are lots of Ifs in our football. Those who are truly responsible for our failure , are still around and their failure will no doubt be repeated in the future as long as they maintain their positions.

Mohammadi is accountable for this loss by Iran’s U-19 in his capacity as a coach, but unless we identify those people who take decision like appointment of a repeat failures , and if those people still manage and manipulate our football administration and , we will never rid ourselves from these bitter disappointments and failures.

 The fear now is the psychological effect on these youngsters who might have a long healing process some of who might find it hard to recover.