Author: admin

11/07/2018

Majid Hosseini to Trabzonspor.

Haber61 – Sports Service –

Trabzonspor is expected to sign Team Melli and Esteghlal defender on Thursday 12th July.

Trabzonspor President Adviser Özkan Sumer, in a brief interview with Haber61, said that his club has been monitoring the 22 years Iranian footballer for a long time. “After proper due diligence , we have progressed to the stage of completion of the Transfer and contract signature formalities. There is no outstanding problem. They will come and we will probably complete the work here on Thursday”.

Trabzonspor continues to make the necessary reinforcements in the team while continuing to prepare for the 2018-2019 season with a training camp in Slovenia.

Part of the plan was strengthening of the defense line by the signing of Esteghlal FC, 22-year-old Iranian player Majid Hosseini, who is expected to arrive in Trabzon tomorrow.

OBSERVATION

Mr. Sumer indicating that the player fits the requirement of the technical team. “We have not only watched the player with naked eyes, We also watched videos of his games. He seemed to be the ideal player in many aspects and the search for the technical staff was over. So we decided so recruit him.”

Adding that transfer studies are continuing, Özkan Sumer emphasized that there is no other transfer that is imminent at this stage but the contacts continues.

Trabzonspor have won seven Süper Lig championship titles in the Turkish League since its establishment in 1967

10/07/2018

Omid Ebrahimi to sign for Qatar’s Al Ahli club.

The Qatari al-Arab newspaper reported that Omid Ebrahimi joined the Al Ahli football team in a one-year contract.

According to the newspaper, the one-year contract with Ebrahimi will be signed with Al Ahly today.

Yesterday, Esteghlal’s German coach Winfred Schafer officially confirmed that his midfieleder will be leaving.

The 30 years old Omid Ebrahimi was one of the finest players for Team Melli in the last FIFA World Cup. He joined Esteghlal from Sepahan in 2014. Ebrahimi has played 33 times for Team Melli which included AFC Asian Cup 2015 in Australia and the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.

10/07/2018

Morteza Pouraliganji on his way out of QSL

Morteza Pouraliganji is on his way out of Al Sadd after his contract expired with the Qatar Stars League QSL side. He is a free agent now.

In an interview with Mehr News, Team Melli’s defender said “I was a defensive midfielder, but I’ve been playing in the central defense for some years, Carlos Queiroz told me he was sure that his progress at the central defense will be 50% more than my previous post. It was hard for me to be in the post for the first month and I did not know how to play, as I have already played in the post of defensive midfielder for long time.”

Commenting on his experience in the FIFA World Cup , he mentioned the Spanish striker Diego Costa as saying: “Costa is one of the most roughest and ill-mannered football players I’ve seen over the years. I was even afraid to look into his eyes.”

The Team Melli defender, talked about his tears while hugging Portugal defender Pepe after the match ended in a draw thus eliminating Iran from the World Cup “Pepe is a professional and has seen a lot of these things. He said you played quite you should be proud well and keep your head raised”

Referring to his status in Qatari Al-Sadd, Pouraliganji said: “I mentioned my demand for a renewal of the contract , which was not agreed upon. I said goodbye to this group and will not play against Esteghlal in AFC Champions League Quarter finals. I also spoke to Xavi on this.

Pouraliganji has negotiated with orther Qatar and the Turkish League sides, “Whatever demand I have will be offered by these clubs but I am not just looking for money. I am 26 years old and it’s time to leave Qatar for a regular European team.”

10/07/2018

Queiroz wants thorough preparation for UAE 2019

The-afc.com

Monday, July 9, 2018

Tehran: Islamic Republic of Iran head coach Carlos Queiroz has stressed on the importance of preparing early ahead of the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 in January.

Iran are in Group D alongside Iraq, Yemen and Vietnam and Queiroz said that in order to succeed in Asia’s most prestigious competition, Iran must prepare themselves to take on the best.

“We will have to play against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and the big Asia football powers like Japan, Korea Republic and Australia in the Asian Cup. Some people think that the tournament will be easy after what we did in the FIFA World Cup, but it’s not.”

Referring to the fans’ expectations after Team Melli’s performance in Russia, Queiroz stressed the importance of paying attention to the requirements of the national team before another difficult competition.

“We will face opponents who have started their development from 30 years ago. We need the facility to prepare our team for the Asian Cup if we really want to be successful in the competition.

“Let’s talk about Japan. You will not have a good chance of beating a country which started its development 40 years ago just 15 days ahead of the competition.”

The Portuguese said Iran deserved more credit for exceeding expectations at the FIFA World Cup.

Team Melli narrowly missed reaching the Round of 16 after a 1-1 draw with Portugal in Group B left them in third place.

“I would like to thank everyone who has helped us get to this point. I want to thank everyone who’s given the ultimate sacrifice. You made the Iranian people proud and happy.”

08/07/2018

Queiroz contract is renewed ; FFIRI claims !

Abdul Kazem Taleghani, a member of the Football Federation Executive Committee, claimed that Queiroz’s contract has been extended to the AFC Asian Cup 2019, and there is hope that the Team Melli head coach’s contract will be extended to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

Mehdi Taj has long claimed that the federation will continue to co-operate with the Portuguese coach, while foreign media reports indicate the end of the partnership between Queiroz and the Iranian Football Federation. Carlos Queiroz, however, left Tehran to Lisbon without any comments on the subject matter, thus strongly strengthening the speculation about the end of the long partnership with Iranian football.

Abdul Kazem Taleghani, in an interview with ISNA, briefed the news agency about the Executive Committee’s meeting of the Football Federation. When asked about Queiroz’s contract and the willingness of Queiroz to continue working with the national team, he said ” through Mahdi Taj. we have learned that his (Queiroz) contract has been extended and everything that he (Mehdi Taj) tells us is a proof as far as we are concerned (…). . As far as I know, the contract is valid until the AFC Asian Cup 2019, but I hope it will be extended to 2022 and he will be in the Qatar World Cup.”

Taleghani continued “Mahdi Taj is has the full authority in negotiating with Queiroz , and we support his decisions because we trust his judgment bout the national team.”

The FFIRI board member was asked when will Queiroz return to Iran “Mr. Saket is in charge of Team Melli m he is Carlos Queiroz direct boss. Although he has just been on vacation and now needs to rest.”

The merry go around or the cat and mouse game between Queiroz and Iran’s Football Federation has been on going for years. Queiroz has mastered the politics of Iranian football and has successfully navigated all the crises, much of it were started by himself. His popularity amongst the fans is on the rise and he is fully taking advantage of that. On the rise are also his contractual demands and his fierce attacks on his opponents, mainly but not limited to , Branko Ivankovic. His demand is very clear, either a 4 years contract extension or he will pack his bags and leave.

08/07/2018

Ali Kaffashian investigated by FFIRI Ethics Committee

The former President of FFIRI and the AFC Vice-President was summoned by the Football Federation Ethics Committee.

According to ISNA, the issue of broadcasting rights was refered to to the Ethics Committee after the discovery of some irregularities. This will be the second time that the proceeding is opened in regards to Team Melli’s matches in the preliminary qualifying round of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 against Guam, Turkmenistan, India and Oman in which, the former President of the Football Federation and current vice president has been accountable.

While the TV broadcast rights company MP & SILVA, as a football federation contractor, claims that they have paid $ 79,000 (totaling $ 316,000) to the football federation FFIRI for each of these games, documents of the federation does not reflect this fact and no record exists of the payment!

Accordingly, Ali Kaffashian, the head of the Football Federation’s at the time was ordered by the Ethics Committee, to submit these records to the committee.

In his first appearance at the Ethics Committee, Kaffashian promised to submit the documents, but despite the passage of more than five months from that first hearing, he had not presented any documents yet, so the Ethics Committee ordered him to appear again before the committee on Wednesday to present the documents.

Ali Kaffashian (63 years) was the President of FFIRI for two terms from 1st March 2008 to 7th May 2016. He was succeeded by Mehdi Taj the incumbent President.

06/07/201808/07/2018

Queiroz leaves Tehran without signing contract extension.

Team Melli head coach, Carlos Queiroz left Tehran to Lisbon, without signing a contract extension after the expiry of the current one with FFIRI.

In the media at least, the FFIRI hierarchy have expressed their confidence that the Portuguese coach will sign on the dotted line to extend his contract until the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019. This would have been a six month extension while Queiroz has been demanding a 4 year contract.

After the highly succesful performance in the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, the second tournament that Queiroz has succeeded to qualify with Iran, it was believed that Queiroz will focus on negotiation with the Football Federation on his contract, but instead, the Team Melli head coach spent most of his time and energy in trash talking and attacking the Persepolis coach in a repeat performance of the last few months. He has also been highly critical of the federation administrators and lack of support for Team Melli from the government.

No official announcement has been published by the FFIRI on the subject

06/07/2018

Iran grouped with North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar in Asian Games football competition.

Jakarta: Iran will face DPR Korea, the 2014 silver medalists, Saudi Arabia, and Myanmar in Group F of the upcoming Asian Games 2019

Defending champions Korea Republic will have Bahrain, Kyrgyz Republic and Malaysia for company in Group F of men’s football at the 2018 Indonesia Asian Games draw in Jakarta on Thursday. Hosts Indonesia, meanwhile, drew Hong Kong, Laos and Chinese Taipei in Group A.

The U-23 tournament, which allows each country to field three overage players, will see 24 teams vying for honours.

Group B has Thailand, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh and Qatar, while Group C will see 2014 bronze medalists Iraq, China PR, Timor-Leste and Syria.

Japan were the seeded team in Group D and they were drawn with Vietnam, Pakistan and Nepal.

The top two teams in each group along with the four best 3rd placed teams will advance to the Round of 16.

Men’s football will be contested on August 14 to September 1 in Jakarta and Palembang.

Iran failed to qualify from group stage in last tournament in Incheon Games 2014. After winning a record 4 gold medal in football competition, the last of which was in 2002 in Busan, Iran won the bronze in Doha games 2006 and the fourth rank in Guangzhou in 2010. This time, the U23 team is coached by Kranjcar who has a good insight into Iranian football and a good track record with Sepahan Esfahan club.

Sohrab Bakhtiyarizadeh and Reza Shahroudi both ex-Team Melli player assist Kranjcar in training the team whil the Manager is Hamid Estili.

Asian Game Men Football

All time medal winners

Year	Host	Final			Third Place
Year	Host	Gold Medal	Score	Silver Medal	Bronze Medal	Score	Fourth Place
1951 details	New Delhi, India	India	1–0	Iran	Japan	2–0	Afghanistan
1954 details	Manila, Philippines	Republic of China	5–2	South Korea	Burma	5–4	Indonesia
1958 details	Tokyo, Japan	Republic of China	3–2	South Korea	Indonesia	4–1	India
1962 details	Jakarta, Indonesia	India	2–1	South Korea	Malaya	4–1	South Vietnam
1966 details	Bangkok, Thailand	Burma	1–0	Iran	Japan	2–0	Singapore
1970 details	Bangkok, Thailand	Burma South Korea	0–0 aet¹		India	1–0	Japan
1974 details	Tehran, Iran	Iran	1–0	Israel	Malaysia	2–1	North Korea
1978 details	Bangkok, Thailand	North Korea South Korea	0–0 aet		China PR	1–0	Iraq
1982 details	New Delhi, India	Iraq	1–0	Kuwait	Saudi Arabia	2–0²	North Korea
1986 details	Seoul, South Korea	South Korea	2–0	Saudi Arabia	Kuwait	5–0	Indonesia
1990 details	Beijing, China	Iran	0–0 aet (4–1) pen	North Korea	South Korea	1–0	Thailand
1994 details	Hiroshima, Japan	Uzbekistan	4–2	China PR	Kuwait	2–1	South Korea
1998 details	Bangkok, Thailand	Iran	2–0	Kuwait	China PR	3–0	Thailand
2002 details	Busan, South Korea	Iran	2–1	Japan	South Korea	3–0	Thailand
2006 details	Doha, Qatar	Qatar	1–0	Iraq	Iran	1–0 aet	South Korea
2010 details	Guangzhou, China	Japan	1–0	United Arab Emirates	South Korea	4–3	Iran
2014 details	Incheon, South Korea	South Korea	1–0 aet	North Korea	Iraq	1–0	Thailand
2018 details	Jakarta and Palembang,

*Under-23 tournament since 2002.

30/06/2018

Faghani ensures Iran’s presence in the FIFA World Cup 2018

Alireza Faghani has been awarded his third FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 match.

The top Iranian referee will be in the centre of the action for the match between Argentina and France in round 16 of the competition. Faghani has already refereed two matches in the tournament.

In both his showing , the 40 years old Faghani, who was born on 21 March 1978 in Kashmar, a city near Mashhad, delivered excellent performance in the two difficult matches. Faghani would be refereeing his 4th ex FIFA World Cup winners when the likes of Messi and Pogba meet in Kazan on 30th June.

2018 FIFA World Cup – Russia
Date	Match	Venue	Round
17 June 2018	Germany – Mexico	Moscow	Group stage
27 June 2018	Serbia – Brazil	Moscow	Group stage
30 June 2018	France – Argentina	Kazan	Round of 16

Faghani became a FIFA referee in 2008, only a year after officiating in the top flight league in Iran. soon after Faghani moved up the ladder quite rapidly in Asia. After only one year of international experience Faghani took charge of the 2009 AFC President’s Cup Final played between Regar-TadAZ Tursunzoda and Dordoi-Dynamo Naryn which was won 2–0 by the hosts. A year later he was again in charge of a final but this time it was a much more important final in the 2010 AFC Challenge Cup where the winner qualified for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup.

He was named as the fourth referee for the opening match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup between Brazil and Croatia. He also refereed the 2014 AFC Champions League Final first leg match between Al-Hilal and Western Sydney Wanderers. Faghani was one of the officials of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, refereeing his first match in Group B between Saudi Arabia and China that ended 0–1. Faghani awarded Saudi Arabia a penalty kick but Naif Hazazi missed it.

He reached a significant milestone when he was awarded the refereeing of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup Final, between South Korea and Australia. Faghani was the referee in the 2015 FIFA Club World Cup Final between Club Atlético River Plate and FC Barcelona. Perhaps even more important milestone was the 2016 Olympic football final match between host Brazil and Germany.

Faghani was referee in six matches of the 2017 Liga 1 in Indonesia and two matches of the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. In the semi final match between Portugal and Chile he caused controversy by not calling a penalty on Chile’s favor, refusing to use the recently implemented Video assistant referee.

22/06/2018

Mahdavikia “I Am quite hopeful that Team Melli will qualify. We must restrain Ronaldo.”

The former Iranian Team Melli player who traveled to Russia to watch Iran and Spain play, commented favorably on the team’s performance and said: “So far, we have been very good and I hope like all the people of Iran, that we do qualify for the next round this time.”

Mahdi MahdaviKia, speaking to Mehr correspondent, said: “We have bagged three points with the win against Morocco and we still stand a chance of qualification, all depending on the last round. The vital match was the one against Morocco, which, thankfully, we won.”

He said: “We have defended absolutely from the beginning of the match. This cannot be denied and from the perspective of those who follow international football, it was a 9 man defense. But after conceding the goal where we needed to attack, we went ahead and played an admirable game. In fact, we showed that there is potential in the offensive line and we can create dangerous attacking moves.”

The former midfielder was positive and confident about Portugal game: “We will hopefully win that game. It is a hard task to achieve, but it is not beyond us. We can do it”

MahdaviKia spoke about the widely covered criticism of the national team’s defensive style: “Many say they play defensively, it is a legitimate strategy, but in the second half of the game with Spain we have also displayed the potential for attack. We excelled up front when we needed to”

The former midfielder of Team Melli who scored Iran’s goal against the United States in the 1998 World Cup in France also commented on the criticism directed at Sardar Azmoun’s performance: “There are critics everywhere in the world. Those who criticize must know what role the coach wanted him to play. Some players seem to perform below expectations, but the same player on the pitch would have done an excellent job of what the coach has asked him to do. I think all Team Melli players played well and surpassed expectations. This is the quality that we have at the moment, we can’t ask for something that is beyond their capabilities.”

MahdaviKia commented on Cristiano Ronaldo’s facing Iranian defense “Portugal’s biggest strength is this player who has scored 4 goals for Portugal , in fact all their goals. But it is football, and a team is a set of players it is a team game. For example, you see, Messi cannot do everything by himself, he needs his teammates support. If we need to win then we have to restrain Ronaldo so we can qualify by achieving the desired result.”

Iran and Portugal will face each other FIFA Russian World Cup on Monday. With two players missing from Portugal training session today.

Portuguese players Joao Moutinho and Raphael Guerreiro both missed the team training session today.

According to the news, Moutinho is suffering from cold while Guerreiro has a knock on one of his legs and therefore were absent and did not attend Portuguese training..