Despite being the golden boy of Iran’s football and the hero who took Iran to the finals of the FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil, Reza Ghoochannejad has no place in the his club thanks to the Israeli coach of the Belgian Club , Standard Liege.

With their Israeli coach, Guy Luzon , Team Melli goal scorer is not only sidelined in his club, Ghoochannejad frequently finds himself not even in the list of 18 players for league matches.  To ensure that Ghoochannejad has no place in the team, the Israeli coach has recruited two of his own Israeli players to fill Ghoochannejad place.  Dudu Biton and Tal Ben Haim have recently joined Standard Liege to add the weight of Israeli flavor in the Belgian team.

With maximum points from 7 games in the Belgium pro-league, no one is too overly concerned with the plight of Ghoochannejad in Liege or whether his exclusion from the team line-up is justified.  There is little or no eyebrows raised either on relegating the Iranian star player to a mere peripheral reserve. No question arising if the Israeli coach ignoring the Iranian player is politically or patriotically motivated act or is it purely technical.  It must be said that the Israeli Guy Luzon has indemnified himself quite well, and certainly covered all angles by his team’s excellent results in the league so far.

Guy Luzon,  a former footballer who represented his country,  is also the nephew of the current chairman of the Israel Football Association, Avi Luzon. All of his activities in football and achievements were in his homeland Israel where the peak of his accomplishment was coaching of Israel U-21 team. His first work outside Israel is the coaching Standard Liege. It is pretty naive to think that Luzon is acting purely on technical and ethical terms. With the political hatred between the two countries leaders, and the rhetoric exchanged between them on every little opportunity, it should not be a surprise that such discrimination can occur between high profile citizens of each country. The motive being for one race to teach another some lessons or at least, flexing of a muscle.

Guy Luzon who served in the Israel defense forces no doubt had received a good doze of ideological training guiding him to identify who the enemy is. The same cannot be said about Ghoochannejad who left Iran as a boy and was not exposed to the Iranian system of political anti-Israeli ideological education.

Whatever the case, it seems that the only loser in this episode is no one by Reza Ghoochannejad and Team Melli. Reza, no doubt a promising and competent scorer, proved by the valuable goals he scored in the World Cup qualifiers, is nailed to the bench of Standard liege. At best , his only hope is to get a few appearances in reserve or in Europa Cup out of necessity due to roster rotation that clubs normally practice.His next window of opportunity comes on the New Year or the winter transfer period. Whether Ghoochannejad will maintain his competitive edge and form, is the big question that Queiroz no doubt is already concerned with.

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Iran’s Beach Soccer Team Melli lost the opening match in the FIFA Soccer World Cup in Tahiti. The Brazilians were the toughest test for Team Melli Melli who played a strong game in the first half but crumbled ion the second.

Bruno Xavier scored a hat-trick as Brazil kicked off their Tahiti 2013 campaign with a morale-boosting 4-1 win over Iran to move top of Group C.

The four-time world champions didn’t have it all their own way against the Asian champions, but their class and clinical finishing eventually told in an entertaining match.

Bruno Xavier was the architect of their win and he settled any early Brazilian nerves with a sweetly struck volleyed opener after just two minutes.

Undeterred, Iran – who had come into the game on the back of a 26-match unbeaten streak – stuck to their game-plan and created several chances of their own, eventually gaining their reward when Amir Akbari restored parity.

However, Brazil re-established their supremacy in the game’s latter stages and eventually clinched a comfortable win through two more goals from Bruno Xavier and another from Bueno.

Brazil now lead Group C on goal difference from Senegal, who beat Ukraine 5-4 in the section’s opening fixture earlier today.

Iran’s squad

The creative midfield player of Sepahan and Team Melli has finally left the club according to Sepahan official.

Ali Torabian , who has been appointed as the acting CEO of the club due to resignations of Ali Rahimi from his post, said that the club was willing to take Jabbari back into the team despite his transgression, however after a series of meetings with the player , it was evident that the ex-Esteghlal player  does not wish to continue playing with Sepahan or remain in Esfahan. Torabian said that Jabbari is admitting his wrongdoing and gave the club the full right to file a case against him. “The player said that he will settle his financial status with the club and return the sign-on fees he received from the club or pay any penalties according to the rulings” according to Torabian who described the agreement between Sepahan club and Mojtaba Jabbari to separate , as amicable.

Despite what seems like an end of the episode, perhaps there are more to it than a simple handshake. Mojtaba Jabbari has joined Sepahan at the beginning of the season after he left his club Esteghlal following a series of unresolved differences.

This arrangement if true, means that Mojtaba Jabbari cannot play competitive football for another club until mid-season transfer window opens . Any club that wants the service of the Jabbari needs the approval of Sepahan. The Esfahani club will not be willing to easily give their direct competitors in the league an added advantage by signing Jabbari, the way Esteghlal admitted their fault after they released the same player.  In practical terms, this results in a  4 months of inaction for the midfield player. Assuming he gets a club after the mid-season transfer window , which no doubt is a formality, he needs much time to regain his form and physical condition especially that he has only recently recovered from injuries. That seems to be yet another piece of negative news for Team Melli in their preparation for the World Cup. Having an influential and creative midfielder in the caliber of Jabbari , out of action for that long, is a blow for Team Melli.

The bulk of the talented Team Melli’s players , are facing difficulties in one way or another. The legionnaires are all fringe players in Europe sometime not even on a substitute list like Ashkan Dejagah at Fulham and Reza Ghoochannejad at Standard Liege. The only lucky one is Masoud Shojae who eventually managed to find a club after several attempts. Masoud, who scored on his debut,  has playing time in a European league , although he earns his money down in the second division of the Spanish league. Even on the domestic scene, only a few of the Team Melli star players have shown quality performance in their games recently. The dip in form , lack of playing time all boils down to a tough task for Carlos Queiroz or whoever takes over for him in case Queiroz decides to call it a day with Iran.

Team Melli has climbed 4 steps and reached one of its highest position for a long time in the FIFA/CocaCola  monthly world ranking.

Accumulating 633 points , Iran ranked 48 in the World and second in Asia following Japan and leapfrogging Australia who dropped to third followed by South Korea in fourth.

The climb in the table came despite the fact that Team Melli was idol and did not play any matches since its qualification to the World Cup in the win against South Korea in Ulsan. The Gap between Iran and Japan is reducing and with 3 official matches in the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers scheduled this year, Iran could very well find itself at the top of Asia Ranking.

Asia top 10 teams

Rnk	Zon. Rnk	Team	Pts	+/- Pos
	42	1	Japan	671	-5
	48	2	Iran	633	4
	53	3	Australia	603	-7
	57	4	Uzbekistan	579	2
	58	5	Korea Republic	574	-2
	73	6	Jordan	494	-2
	82	7	United Arab Emirates	456	2
	96	8	Oman	382	-1
	99	9	China PR	362	-4
	105	10	Iraq	325	-1