Tehran: Hosts Iran are kicking off their AFC U-16 Championship campaign against underdogs Laos at the PAS Stadium on Saturday but head coach Ali Doustimehr is wary about the unpredictable nature of the game when it comes down to the age category.

Meeting Laos, who are participating for the first time after the tournament was changed to U-16 from AFC U-17 Championship in 2008, would definitely give them more chances to collect all three points but Doustimehr is not seeing those three points in bag before kicking the ball.

“There are advantages and disadvantages of being hosts as the entire country is watching you closely and want you to lift the title. But it won’t be easy given the qualities of the opponents,” Doustimehr said during the pre-tournament press conference. “We are waiting for this time immediately after the qualifications and now it’s the time to show the people how much we have progressed,” he said.

Being the hosts, the Iran Football Federation has left no stone unturned by organizing and participating at various competitions over the months. According to Ali who led Iran to the title in 2008, Iran toured Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Abu Dhabi (to participate in a tournament), Georgia and Kazakhstan as part of their preparation. In Kazakhstan where they were up against six teams including four European countries they emerged winners.

As defending champions, Iran failed to progress through the group stages in 2010.

In a relatively balanced Group A, Kuwait and Yemen are other contenders who will face each other on Sunday. Kuwait also failed in the group stages like Iran in 2010 but this time around they are determined to progress further.

“Our aim is no different than other 15 countries who are here in Tehran,” Kuwait’s Serbian coach Goran Matkovic said. “We played a total of 11 matches in Egypt, Hungary and in Kuwait so we are prepared for this championship. On the top of that, we are also happy to rub shoulders with the best of Asia in this championship.

“We expect to play good football and produce results and will see what unfolds,” he added.
Matkovic’s counterpart Amin Alsunami rues the lack of preparation his team had but he stressed the quality of Yemen team.

“Our only preparation was Arab U-17 Championship apart from that unfortunately we did not compete in any friendly international,” said Alsunami. “But we have some promising footballers and I hope they will try their best to win matches,” he added.

Yemen were impressive in the Arab U-17 Championship held in Tunisia where they managed to progress in the semi-finals after winning their group matches against Algeria and Morocco.

 

Source: afc.com

Team Melli’s Central defender Hadi Aghili is reported to be suffering an injury that will keep him off the filed for over 4 weeks.

Hadi Aghili, who is a new signing for Qatar FC in the QSL ,  suffered a sudden injury in the match against Al Rayyan , as he raced to a long ball, allowing the Brazilian Nilmar to take advantage to find himself one on one with the Qater FC goalkeeper and scoring. Aghili had to leave the field with what turned to be a thigh muscle that will keep him out for around a month.

Becuse of this mishap , Team Melli will be facing Korean Rep without Aghili on October 16th in Azadi . Carlos Queiroz who has already changed the long standing central defense partnership of Aghili and Hosseini , by replacing the latter with Pejman Montazeri , is obliged to change his central backs again for the crucial match against the group leader and favorite Korea Rep.

On a positive note, Esteghlal’s influential midfielder Mojtba Jabbari has reported fully fit and resumed his training with the club. Jabbari , who has suffered several injuries in his career which has hindered his progress , is yet to feature for Esteghlal this season. It is not known if Queiroz will pick him for the Korea game so soon after recovering from a long lay off, although the Portuguese coach has a track record of doing so when he played Masoud Shojaei who had a much longer injury spell  than Jabbari, for the Lebanon match.

The Osasuna midfielder has not featured for his club in the La Liga. while playing in the World Cup 2014 qualifier , not even making the bench.

Iran is second in the group with 4 points with better goal difference than Qatar.

 

 

Tehran.

Ali DoustiMehr , Iran’s U16 coach has announced his final list of young players who form the squad that will be participating in the upcoming AFC U=16 Championship which will be held in Tehran starting September 22nd.

Iran will be playing in Group A along with Yemen , Kuwait and Laos.  Iran’s U16 team which won the Asian title in 2008 and were finalist in 2000 will open their campaign with a game against Laos on the 22nd.

The players will be starting their training in a closed camp set up at the Olympic hotel and will be camping there until the opening day of the tournament.

Iran team which defeated Japan 4-1 on July 13th in their friendly match played as part of the preparations for the upcoming AFC U-16 Championship 2012, is expected to be a strong contender for the title.

Mojtaba Moqtdaei, Ali Hazamy, Sassan Jafari Kia, Erfan Wejdany, Komeil Haghzadeh, Reza Karmla Cha’ab, Daniel KazimNia, Ali Rigi , Seyed Sajjad Seyed, Seyed Majid Hosseini, Amir Mohammad Mazloum, Ali Shojaei, Omid NoorAfkan, Mohammad Bazaj, Milad Da’ai, Amir Nasr Azadani, Keyvan Hashemi, Shervin Kazemi, Saeed Ezattolahei, Sadegh Moharrami, Parsa, Salimi, Abdolreza Zarei, Erfan Estakhri

22-09-2012 13:00	KUWAIT		YEMEN
– Stadium: PAS Stadium, Tehran
22-09-2012 17:00	I.R. IRAN		LAOS
– Stadium: PAS Stadium, Tehran
24-09-2012 13:00	LAOS		KUWAIT
– Stadium: PAS Stadium, Tehran
24-09-2012 17:00	YEMEN		I.R. IRAN
– Stadium: PAS Stadium, Tehran
26-09-2012 17:00	I.R. IRAN		KUWAIT
– Stadium: PAS Stadium, Tehran
26-09-2012 17:00	YEMEN		LAOS
– Stadium: Rah Ahan Stadium, Tehran

In an exclusive interview with ISNA , Ali Kaffashian  admitted that Team Melli result has been a deep disappointment  for the Sport fans in Iran and accepted that the recent loss to Lebanon was on par with defeats against  Saudi Arabia at Azadi in the last World Cup campaign and the loss to Bahrain in the qualification for the 2002 World Cup.

The President of the Iranian Football Federation , however ,  distanced his administration from blame and the poor performance of Carlos Queiroz and his team!

Asked by the reporter if he accepts that the performance of the Team Melli in the recent months and particularly in the World Cup Qualifiers, has been dismal and unacceptable while other sports in Iran are delivering and achieving historic feats , particularly the best ever Olympics and Para-Olympics results in addition to the success of Iran’s Volleyball team , Kaffashian agreed and said that he definitely accepts that Iran’s football team results has been grossly disappointing for the fans and played substandard. Kafashian said  he realizes that the fans, experts ,administrators and even the players themselves are very disappointed by the loss against Lebanon which is as worst as the two famous losses against Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. “This loss has hit us heavily and we are quite concerned with it. We have expressed our concern since the poor performance with Uzbekistan and Qatar but we really expected to get at least a good result against Lebanon. It was not to be.” The president of IRIFF said.

Kaffashian continued “These are defining moments , a loss or victory were equally important and defining. This loss is a heavy blow to us but at this stage we have no other option but to support the team and the coaching staff as much as we can.  Our objective is to make the fans happy and hence we have to work towards that.”

Asked about his own personal opinion why Team Melli is performing so poorly and below expectation, Kaffashian said that the coach has been with Team Melli for close to one and a half year. Queiroz  has been  fully supported and all provided with the resources available even it it meant pulling those resources  away from the clubs. The coach had ample time to watch the teams and select his own players and according to his own wishes , so , it is apparent that the complexion and the fabric of this team has major weaknesses.

 Kaffashian’s conclusion was that the clubs have not produced quality players to feed the National team. “ Years ago , the clubs provided good player and hence we had  good and successful Team Melli. Even if there was some negative  results , Team Melli played well , at least and that was the least the fans expected from Team Melli all the time , to play a good match.” “ However , this team is not doing so.  The core of the problem remains the weak supply by the clubs , failure to produce quality players , failure to raise and develop players from youth system which has ultimately  affected the performance and the output of our national team.”

Kaffashian’s  stressed that  Team Melli must bounce back and needs to deliver. A failure will be very harmful to our football and the first people who will suffer from such failure would be  the players themselves.

When quizzed about the role of the Football federation in all these failures, Kaffashian , said the federation has no real role in all this . According to him , the role of the federation is restricted to employ the best coach available. “Carlos Queiroz is now ranked no 15 in the world (!)  and first in Asia, whatever the coaching staff asked , we provided, including arranging of camps and friendly matches. All this support was despite the fact that the finances were tight at the federation but we have not stopped at anything for the sake of Team Melli. Our conscious is clear despite the fact that this team has not responded well and performed poorly.  “ Kaffashian said in his own defense.

DO you think that the situation now is beyond us and depended on others , Kaffashian expressed his concern that at this stage it looks like the destiny of Team Melli is more dependent on others rather than the teams own result. “ Yes , I think we are going to that direction , one more bad result , and that would probably be for certain that we have to wish for the others to fail ”

On the issue of that was recently discussed in the Iranian sport media demanding an apology from the football federation to the sport fans due to these series of poor results, Kaffashian categorically refused to provide any such apology and insisted that an apology will make no difference on the fate of the team.

Kaffashian denied any intention by the federation to interfere in Queroz job and that includes player’s selections, he said that the coach is responsible and accountable for the team and there is no need to impose anything on him by the federation.

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In a shock result , Team Melli lost to Lebanon at Camille Shamoun Sport City by  a solitary goal from a header by Redha Antar which proved to be  the match winner, with the creative midfielder’s 28th-minute strike being the first goal Lebanon, ranked 124th by FIFA, had scored against their more illustrious opponents in this their eighth meeting.

Antar rose above the Iranian defense in front of his direct marker , Hossein Mahini to head home a free kick from Mohammad Haidar in the 28th minute, giving Lebanon its first goal ever against Iran. It proved to be the winner as Lebanon defended well for the rest of the game to deny the Iranians and claim all three points in the Asian Group A.

For Lebanon, competing in the fourth round of Asian World Cup qualifying for the first time, this was their first win in the group and with the point gained in a draw with Uzbekistan , they are now in par with Iran and Qatr with 4 points. The loss is Iran’s first in this World Cup qualification.

With quite a few players missing , the line up was a repeat of earlier ones tried by Queiroz that failed to impress , yet the Portuguese have stuck to the same names even playing Karim Ansarifad , whom he ignored initially due to poor form and was a last minute addition to the squad , to spearhead the attack.

Despite having most of the ball possession , Team Melli failed to take advantage of that control , while the Lebanese goalkeeper Abbas Hassan displayed a few heroics in both halves to deny the Iranians.

After scoring , the Lebanese  then defended bravely and wasted time much to the irritation of Iran, who struggled badly on the atrocious pitch which lacked grass in several areas as the home side claimed the landmark win.

The result heaped more pressure on Iran coach Carlos Queiroz, the former Real Madrid and Portugal boss who has been criticized for his tactics , poor player selection , weak offensive line , as the team have struggled to score goals.

On Tuesday, they dominated possession and territory but came up against in-form Lebanese goalkeeper Abbas Hassan, who thwarted them on several occasions.

The headband-wearing goalkeeper, who was shown a yellow card for time-wasting, produced a string of solid saves, with his 95th-minute stop of Mohammad Ghazi’s strong header a highlight.

Inspirational captain Roda Antar returned from injury to score the crucial goal as Lebanon recorded a famous 1-0 win over Iran on Tuesday which kept alive their hopes of qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals.

Antar, who had missed his team’s first three matches in Group A because of a knee injury, headed in a free-kick by Mohamad Haidar after 28 minutes to give the Cedars all three points at Sports City Stadium.

The Iranians dominated possession but struggled to carve out any clear openings until the very end when Lebanon goalkeeper Abbas Hassan made a series of outstanding saves to preserve the victory.

The win was Lebanon’s first ever against Team Melli, who had won six of the previous seven international meetings between the two sides. More importantly, it put Theo Bucker’s side right back into contention for a spot in the 2014 FIFA World Cup after they had managed only one point from their first three matches in the group.

They now have four points from four games, level with second-placed Iran and Qatar and three points behind group leaders Korea Republic, who drew 2-2 with Uzbekistan in an earlier match.

“We had a good performance today and I’m happy with what the players showed in the game,” said Lebanon coach Bucker. “We showed that we are capable of getting good results and now we have a good chance after this win to qualify although we must work hard.

“We played against a strong team but we believed that we could win and that helped us tonight. We now have to get some rest and prepare well for our next game against Qatar.”

While the Iranians enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, they did very little to trouble the home side, who were quite content to sit back and hit their opponents on the counter-attack.

And against the run of play, they took the lead just before the half-hour mark when Haidar floated in a free-kick from the right that picked out Antar on the edge of the six-yard box and the Lebanon captain expertly guided his header past goalkeeper Seyed Rahmati and into the net despite Pejman Nouri’s desperate attempt to clear the ball off the line.

With the lead in hand, the home side seemed prepared to shut down the game and continually frustrated their opponents by denying them space and holding up the ball while they were in possession.

A frustrated Carlos Queiroz sent on Ehsan Haji Safi and Mohammad Ghazi to replace Karim Ansari and Nouri at half-time but the visitors continued to struggle with Mohammed Noori’s header, which forced a sharp save from Abbas Hassan just before the hour, their only real chance early in the second half.

But Hassan would become more influential as the game entered its closing stage as he denied Javad Nekounam twice in a minute after turning aside a powerful volley from just inside the box and then diving low to keep out the Iran captain’s header from the resulting corner.

The Lebanon goalkeeper then made another brilliant save in stoppage time to deny Ghazi as the fans at the Sports City Stadium celebrated one of the most memorable results in their country’s football history.

Iran coach Queiroz felt that Abbas’ performance was the crucial difference between the two sides.

“Congratulations to Lebanon who won with the least possible effort,” said the Portuguese. “We had a good match and had a great performance but Lebanon had a good goalkeeper who had a great game and denied us a lot of times.

“Despite the defeat, we are still in the competition although the situation is now complicated. We missed several players today and Lebanon showed good fighting spirit which coupled with a good performance of their goalkeeper helped them to win.”

Earlier, South Korea held on to their lead at the top of the pool by drawing 2-2 away to Uzbekistan. The Koreans lead the way on seven points with Iran second on goal difference in the group’s other qualifying berth for Brazil 2014.

Match details here

Team Melli will be facing Lebanon in one of the most crucial matches of the final qualification rounds of the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil. After a series of unconvincing displays by the Iranian team under the coaching of the Portuguese coach , Carlos Queiroz, the ex-Real Madrid and asst. coach of Alex Ferguson , has admitted that the task in Beirut will not be easy as he is will be facing a determined team that requires a good result to stay in touch with the rest of the teams in this group.

Iran’s Team Melli has not won a competitive match since the opener game of  this group against Uzbekistan in Tashkent in June with an injury time goal by Khalatbary. Since then , a disappointing draw against Qatar in Azadi in front of capacity crowds , followed by two friendly draws against Tunisia and Jordan , has attracted criticism against the performance and results from the media nd experts. Queiroz , a person who has not been very accommodating to the critics and has  shown little tolerance towards critics , has been on the defensive and accused his critics of failing to support the team at crusical stage of the competition.

In any case , the Portuguese is feeling the heat and is under pressure to deliver some good result in Beirut but according to him , that will not be an easy job. “Despite the fact that our match against Lebanon is not going to be easy, we have a great chance to win. We can‘t underestimate Lebanon because they are a strong team especially when they play at home and therefore the task will not be easy”, Queiroz was quoted in the pre-match press conference. On the other side , His German coach of Lebanon national team , Theo Bücker emphasized his team’s dire need for the 3 points “the result is really important and could determine our campaign in the qualifiers.”

Lebanon hwill virtually lose all chances of making a comeback in this group if they l;ose all three points at hom,e against Iran, however , the possibility of the Lebanese going for an all offensive strategy is quite remote ads the cautious German would rather not lose than to open up and expose his defense line. Lebanon depends on the counter attack while they have maintained a good defensive plans through this campaign. Such strategy resulted in an historic win against the mighty South Koreans ,a result that shocked the perennial Asian World Cup qualifiers and  resulted in the sacking of their coach. Although Lebanon has not repeated such a feat again , the possibilities are there given the home advantage and the need to win points at such a stage.

All indication s are towards a tough match for Queiroz men , especially in the absence of some key players such as the inspirational Ashkan Dejaghah who suffered a minor knock that kept him away from the Jordan camp and the friendly. With Andranik Teymourian being suspended for this match as a result of two cards, the midfield will depend on the industry of Captain Javad Nekounam and creativity of the veteran Ali Karimi . Both the players have been found wanting and have not produced the quality expected from them. The veteran midfielders, who have over 250 caps between them, have suffered poor form at club and country level since the start of the season, while other midfield players have also not managed to sparkle the team.

At the front line, news about Mohammad Ghazi . who was pulled out of the match against Jordan after a receiving a knock , is still sketch and it is unconfirmed if he will be part of the squad, leaving the lone forward spot to Karim Ansarifard to spearhead the Iranian offensive. The Perspolis player is also suffering from a soft patch and was initially not selected for the squad , however an injury to other players forced the Portuguese coach to recall Ansarifard , a move that attracted further scorn form critics of Carlos Queiroz.

While the defense line was relatively stable and immune from major changes, there has been a quite a few changes recently in this line as well. Several combinations of players for the central half was attempted by Queiroz while the same also was true for the half backs. The expected line up at the back remains to be seen.

Queiroz realizes the importance of the three points and he will be desperate to achieve all of the points. A slip or in worst case scenario, a defeat, might will put the Iranian team chances for qualifying in real jeopardy especially since both Uzbekistan and Qatar are very much still in with a chance to challenge Iran for one of the spots.

The West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) approved the seedlings for the upcoming tournament of the seventh West Asian Championship men football competition 2012, on four levels.

The seeding of the participating teams in the tournament at different levels is based on the FIFA  Ranking which was released on Wednesday , September 5th. The first level comprises of Kuwait, the host team and defending champions along with Iran , the highest ranking team in the competition , and Iraq, who obtained the next best ranking  the West Asia region of the FIFA Ranking.

The distribution of teams at different levels as follows:

Level 1: Kuwait, Iran, Iraq,

Level 2 : Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia

Level 3:  Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon

Level 4:  Syria, Palestine, Yemen.

The West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) announced earlier the date of the draw to be on the  16th September in Kuwait City. The 7^th Tournament will consist of 3 groups  of 4 teams each, Winners of each group will shall qualify for the semi-finals along with the best team finishing second in the 3 groups.

For the best second team , the system adopted to determine such team  (the best team in second place) will consider total number of points achieved by each team in the group matches, then goal difference in the group matches , the number of goals scored and the number of yellow and red cards least obtained by each team. In the unlikely event of continuing tie between two or more teams , the selection of such team will be determined by a draw.

The tournament will be held in Kuwait during the period from 8 to 20 December 2012  in Kuwait, with the participation of 12 teams : Kuwait, Jordan, UAE, Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen.

The sixth edition of the tournament was held in 2010 in Jordan, where the Kuwaiti team crowned champions after beating Iran 2-1 in the final.

FIFA ranking for the current month put the participating teams tournament as follows: 54 – Iran: 573 points, 78 – Iraq: 437 points, 87 – Jordan: 402 points, 93 – Oman: 376 points, 100 – Kuwait: 348 points .105 – Saudi Arabia: 328 points, 112 – Bahrain: 308 points, 120 – UAE: 278 points, 124 – Lebanon: 271 points, 148 – Syria: 170 points, 151 – Palestine: 161 points, 152 – Yemen: 154 points.

Wednesday 5^th September 2012

Team Melli were held to a goalless draw by Jordan in the last friendly game before Tuesday as they prepare for the crucial match against Lebanon in Beirut.

Before the kickoff , the two teams stood in one minute silence  in the memory  of Mahmood Al Jowhary , the Egyptian former Team Manager of Jordan , who died in Amman as a result of heart attack a couple of days back.

The match kickoff, which was played in King Abdulla  the second Stadium in Al Quasmieh in the suburbs of Amman , and attracted a small Jordanian crowd, was delayed for half an hour due to the Jordanian squad arriving at the venue late as a result of breakdown of their bus transporting them to the stadium!

  The host ,  who are also preparing for a vital match against Australia in which their fate will be known in the FIFA World Cup  2014 qualifiers, were quite determined to make amends for their poor results and fought quite well to control the middle of the park. Occasionally they also showed superior technical abilities and managed to beat Iranian players on one to one encounters. Haddadifar was guilty of several lapses in the midfield while both Karimi and Nekounam contribution where modest.

Despite the Jordanian controlling the game , the first real chance for scoring came to Iran when Karim Ansarifard , a late addition to the squad after he was overlooked initially ,  received a long ball on the right flank and with a sudden burst of pace , beat his defender but shoot from a distance off mark.

Jordan, rarely tested Iran’s defenses as Rahmati had nothing serious to worry about in this half, while the next scoring chance also came to Iran when Khalatbary’s beautifully curved ball hit the post.

With 4 changes in Team Melli mainly in the middle of the field , Team Melli piled on the pressure in the second half as Omid Nazari , Pejman Nouri and Mohammad Nouri were substituted in . Iran took control of the ball and the midfield and was visibly the better team. Several chances were created and most of them were executed by Mohammad Reza Khalatbary of which one header from a delicate cross was easily dealt with by Amer Shafi’s , and then Khalatbary  again, hit a ferocious shot that Jordan’s goalkeeper only managed to parry while another chance went to Omid Nazari who shot beautifully on the far right hand side of Amir Shafi, for the gallant Jordan keeper to save it miraculously to keep his sheet clean.

           

 While all the clear scoring opportunities went Iran’s way, a solitary real chance of the game came to Jordan when a header struck the post late in the second half.

Overall, despite the much better performance by Team Melli  in the second half, the team clearly lacks cohesion  and organization. The fluidity of the last match against Tunisia, was also missing in this game with the absence of players like Ashkan Dejagah and Ando Teymourian. Despite Masoud Shojae starting the game and playing over 70 minutes , his contribution was minimal as he clearly displayed a lack of match practice which perhaps requires a long time to reach his peak. A knock received by Mohammad Ghazi , late in the 2^nd half forced Queiroz to substitute him. There is no word on his injury, the list of which is starting to grow in the squad.

Carlos Queiroz was dismissed from the game in the closing minutes when he vehemently disputed two calls by the linesman. The Portuguese seemed to be quite animated and upset with the happy whistling referee for UAE.

Team Melli will be flying to Beirut on Sunday for the game on September 11^th against Lebanon.

Match Details Here