TEHRAN,(MNA)

 Iran captain Javad Nekounam said that it’s time to erase memory of shock defeat against Lebanon in the 2014 World Cup qualifier when the Persians meet the team on Wednesday in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. “We were dominant in Beirut and created many chances but failed to score. They had just one chance and took advantage of it.

Iran showed a very satisfying performance in that match but things didn’t go well as planned and we lost to Lebanon,” Nekounam said in an interview with ISNA on Monday. “They used to waste the time such as the other Arabian teams. If they score, you will be in trouble since they waste the time. We are ready to defeat them this time,” the 33-year old midfielder added. “Iran will play Lebanon once again in June in the 2014 World Cup qualifier and we have to show them our dominance,” Nekounam concluded.

Iran has been drawn against Lebanon, Thailand and Kuwait in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup qualification.

European-based duo Ashkan Dejagah and Reza Ghoochannejhad are set to feature for Iran in Wednesday’s AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Lebanon at the Azadi Stadium at Tehran.

The Group B encounter marks the start of the qualification process for three-time champions Iran and the availability of Fulham midfielder Dejagah and Standard Liege’s Ghoochannejhad are a major boost to coach Carlos Queiroz.

Iran, though, will be wary of Lebanon having suffered a 1-0 defeat in Beirut during September’s final round FIFA World Cup qualifier.

“We respect Lebanon like all other opponents. We are going to display attacking football, but this is a game we should play wisely and we will try to satisfy the fans,” said Queiroz.

“I don’t personally like to compete in two different competitions at the same time, but it is what it is and we have to fight on two fronts simultaneously. We will fight with all our full power to get the necessary points both to qualify for the World Cup and the Asian Cup in 2015.”

Lebanon coach Theo Bucker, meanwhile, was quick to quash suggestions his side were fortunate to claim all three points against Iran in September after Roda Antar’s first-half strike proved the difference between the two sides at Sports City Stadium.

“We know we are a much smaller team than Iran, but back in September we outplayed them and won the match,” said Bucker, who will return to Tehran with Lebanon in June for the return fixture in the final round of qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup.

“We have beaten Kuwait, Korea Republic and Iran so far. If someone wishes to attribute these wins to luck and fortune, I’d call that cheap and unfair.”

TEHRAN,  The coaching staff of Team Melli headed by Carlos Queiroz announced the  26-man squad as part of the team  preparation for the the Asian Cup qualifier versus Lebanon on February 6.

As expected abd despite the excitement of including yet another European based Iranian player , this time by the name of Daniel Davari , the Eintracht Braunschweig did not make the list due to the proximity of the match with an importance Bundesliga II meet a couple of days after the Lebanon match.

Mojtaba Jabbari, is recalled to the team after a long absence. The Esteghlal player has suffered a long term injury and is short of match practice , however , he showed that he is one of the best players for Iran during the last two league matches that he featured.

Major players missing are , Ali Karimi and Omid Nazari due to injury added to that the recently joined Perspolis midfielder Reza Haghighi.

The biggest loser of the list is Perspolis. Karim Ansarifard and Mohammad Ghazi are not among those as they complete the prominent absentee list of Persepolis players.

There is a recall for two senior players Gholamreza Rezaei and Hadi Aghili . The former due to a combination of injury and loss of form missed quite a number of Team Melli games while Aghili’s absent was a mystery as he was playing well for his Qatari club.  Esteghlal target man Farzad Hatami could celebrate his national team debut.

The camp will start on Friday at the national teams hotel in Azadi complex.

The Squad

Goalkeepers

 Rahman AHMADI – Saipa (32 years) – 2 Caps
Alireza HAGHIGHI – Rubin Kazan, RUS (24 years) – 3 Caps
Shehab GORDAN – Sepahan (28 years) – 3 Caps

Defenders
Mehrdad POOLADI – Persepolis (25 years) – 15 Caps
Ehsan HAJSAFY– Sepahan (22 years) – 49 Caps
Khosrow HEYDARI– Esteghlal (29 years) – 40 Caps
Hossein MAHINI– Persepolis (26 years) – 16 Caps
Jalal HOSSEINI – Persepolis  (30 years) – 75 Caps
Pejman MONTAZERI – Esteghlal (29 years) – 11 Caps
Mohammad NOSRATI – Tractor Sazi (31 years) – 80 Caps
Hadi AGHILI – Qatar SC,  QAT (32 years) – 69 Caps

Midfielders
Javad NEKOUNAM – Esteghlal (32 years)-  130 Caps
Andranik TEYMOURIAN – Al Kharitiyath, QAT (29 years) – 69 Caps
Omid EBRAHIMI – Sepahan (25 years) – 3 Caps
Mojtaba JABBARI – Esteghlal (29 years) – 22 Caps
Pejman NOURI – Malavan (32 years)- 45 Caps
Yaghoub KARIMI – Naft Tehran (22 years) – 4 Caps
Masoud SHOJAEI – Osasuna, ESP (28  years) – 40 Caps

Strikers
Ashkan DEJAGAH – Fulham FC, ENG (26 years) – 5 Caps
MohamadReza KHALATBARY – Sepahan (29 years) – 52 Caps
Gholamreza REZAEI – Persepolis (28 years) – 46 Caps
Arash AFSHIN – Foolad Khuzestan (23 years) – 4 Caps
Reza GHOOCHANEJAD – Standard Liege, BEL (25 years) – 2 Caps
Jalal RAFKHAEI – Malavan (28 years) – 10 Caps
Mehrdad OULADI – Malavan (27 years) -11 Caps
Farzad Hatami – Esteghlal (27 years) – 0 Caps

Doha – Katara village.

Iran’s Beach football team won its first ever Asian title by beating the defending champions Japan. The thrilling and eventful match ended 6-6 in regulation time , with the added 3 minutes extra time failing to find a winning goal.

In the penalty kicks, the sudden death , Iran scored all 5 goals while Japan’s fifth kick was saved by Peyman Hosseini , Iran’s  brilliant goalkeeper.

With both teams already qualified for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti next September , the match was expected to be an open affair and entertaining. The two teams did not disappoint the full capacity arena and from the word go , the excitement started,

Japan started the match in a spectacular style when Ouzo , the Brazilian born Japanese center half scored right from the kick off with a ferocious shot that flew in to the upper left corner of Peyman Hosseini goal. The Iranian keeper, despite his  remarkable attempt with a jump to his right, could not prevent this unstoppable ball.

The Match clock has passed 2 seconds only at the time.

This quick and sudden goal , seriously disturbed the Iranian players and soon they lost their concentration, however Iran managed to equalized through Ahmadzadeh resulting in some calm amongst the their player . But no soon after that equalizer Japan scored two quick goals by Ouzo make it 4-1 for the Japanese

 Iran games was marred by rough play and loss of discipline which resulted in many free kicks 3 of which resulted in goals for Japan.

Despite the Iran’s Brazilian coach request for calm , the Iranian players continued commuting fouls with their over zealous tackles and then pleading innocence, and that cost them heavily.

Whenever Iran players played calmly and remained focused on the games, they threatened the Japanese goal with their individual skills and quick moves.

Iran then scored two goals by Mehran Morshedizadeh from a nicely chipped free kick before the team’s top scorer Moslim Meisigar scored Iran’s third with a deflected ball. It was 4-3 for Japan and the game was certainly on. However, the tense Iranian players continued making the same  mistakes and committing fouls for Japan to score two more to make it 6-3.
Iran scored  by Mohammad Ali Mokhtari wrong footed the Japanese goalkeeper to score  from a penalty with 6 minutes to go to make it 6-4.
Barely a minute passed when  Akbari , Iran;s youngest pkayer found the net to score Iran’s 5th. The Japanses , who felt quite secure with the tthree goal margin , suddenly found themselves threatend and now it was their turn to lose focus and concentration

In dramatic fashion with only 35 seconds to to go , Iran’s Moslim Meisigar the tournament top scorer , scored the equalizer with a bouncing ball off the sand . The ecstatic Iranian fans in Katara roared in delight with Meisigar running to the bench to celebrate with the coach. The whistle blew for the end of regulation time with the result 6-6 and extrea time.

The 3 extra minutes did not yield any results and the two teams went into penalty shoot-out Iran scorers where ;Morshedizadeh  , Ali Naderi   , Mokhtari , Ahmadzadeh    and Moslem Meisigar.

Iran;s keeper Peyman Hosseini saved Japan’s 5th penalty kicj to declare Iran as champions of Asian Beach soccer, Although this is Iran’s first title in this particular competition . Team Melli is current;y the holder of the titke for the beach games.

Daneil Davari’s debut for Team Melli is in doubt after the German newspaper Braunschweiger Zeitung has reported that the German-Polish-Iranian goalkeeper is declining the invitation for the Lebanon game to be held on February 6^th citing an important match that his club Eintracht Braunschweig is scheduled to play 48 hours after that AFC Asian Cup 2015 qualifier in Tehran.

On Friday 8^th February , Eintracht Braunschweig who are now second in the Bundesliga II table is schedule to play VfR Aalen. From the onset of the invitation of Davari for the Lebanon game, doubts have been raised that the 25-year-old goalkeeper will follows the example of teammate Domi Kumbela and decline an invitation to the national team of Canada in order to concentrate fully on the promotion battle with the blue and yellow team.

Iran’s Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz has invited the Brunswick goalkeeper, whose father is from Iran, for the next qualification game for the Asian Cup 2015 against Lebanon. This was confirmed by Christoph Leutrum, who is Davari’s business manager and advisor. Davari’s invitation was already widely reported in Tehran’s media and on the web.

“The contact with the Iranian Association has been going on since last summer,” says Leutrum. “They want to have Daniel and he was quite happy.” Davari would have been following the footsteps of Ashkan Dejagah (Fulham / England), Omid Nazari (Ängelholms FF / Sweden) and Reza Ghochannejad (Standard Liege / Belgium), as the fourth European Legionnaires in the Iranian squad.

That the native of Giessen was nominated for the first time this week, probably was the consequence of the fact that Iran’s current number 1 goalkeeper, Mehdi Rahmati, had announced his retirement from the national team, claiming  “personal reasons”. However, many insiders have doubted his reasoning and considered the 29-year goalkeeper as a pre-emptive step before the coaching staff benching him or even ousting the long serving Esteghlal keeper. After several blunders, the 75 times capped keeper had come under wide criticism especially for his poor timing and mishandling of crosses.

In another development, Omid Namazi , one of Carlos Queiroz assistants, was quoted today by ISNA, that he is not aware of Davari’s declining to join the squad nor was he informed verbally or officially by anyone in the squad or IFF.

Doha- Katara field

Iran’s Beach Soccer team defeated the UAE 3-2 in the semi-finals of Asian Beach Soccer competition to book its place in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti which will be held in September 2013.

This will be Iran’s 5th appearance in FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup tournament. Team Melli beach soccer team qualified for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011 tournaments,

In a closely fought match , Iran’s Muslim Mosaiger opened the scoring in the first half with a nice half turn beating UAE goalkeeper.

The Uae equalized through Ali Karim’s free kick that beat Yousifi from long range.

Abdollahi scored Iran’s second with a beautiful long header in the empty UAE net as the UAE keeper Humaid Jamal cleared a ball right to Abdollahi’s head who did not hesitate to head straight into the net from jsut inside Iran’s half.

Iran then scored the third from Ahmadzadeh beating two markers before making a half turn and shooting past the stretched UAE Keeper to make it 3-1

Ali Karim scored  kept UAE’s hope alive by scoring a spectacular overhead kick to make it 3-2 in the third period with 6 minutes to go

Despite the desperate effort by UAE m they did not manage to equalize while Iran came close to a fourth goal in the final seconds.

Iran will be meeting Japan after the defending champions beat Australia in another closely encounter ending 2-1.The final will be tomorrow Saturday 26th January 2013.

Iran edge China to fight for one of three World Cup slots

Iran came back from two goals down take their place among the best four sides in the continent after edging out China in a tense top of the table clash.

The Iranians came into the decider in brilliant form, but were guilty of a schoolboy error when Ahmadzadeh’s misdirected backpass found his own goal. Iran then had goalkeeper Hosseini to thank for keeping the score at 1-0, displaying superb reactions to deny Lui’s rocket from a dead ball.

Still, Ongaro’s China remained determined to ruin Iran’s evening, as Han finished off a great counterattack to give the Chinese a two-goal lead going into the first break.

Iran quickly re-grouped and commenced a heroic comeback, with number 10 Mesigar central to their resurgence, reducing the deficit to 2-1 before Naderi headed home a pinpoint cross to bring the sides levels.

Mesigar completed his brace inside the last minute of the second period to give the Persians a decisive advantage. And, having taken the lead, they made their vast experience count to limit China’s chances and see the game out.

Mokhtari put the icing on the cake midway through the third segment, crushing China’s semi final dreams.

The final whistle sent Iran into the semi finals of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2013 – Asian Qualifier Qatar, where they will have a chance to fight for a place in Tahiti.

“Iran have too much experience. There was too much pressure, but, we’ve improved a lot,” said China’s coach Rosario Ongaro after the narrow loss.

Goals: 0-1: Ahmadzadeh, min. 5 (1); 0-2: Han, min. 0 (1); 1-2: Mesigar, min. 0 (1); 2-2: Naderi, min. 3 (2) 3-2: Mesigar, min. 1 (2); 4-2: Mokhtari, min. 8 (3);

Iran will meet UAE in the semi-final to book its place for the Beach Football world cup in Tahiti.

Matches for tomorrow  Fri 25.01.13 
14:00 – Philippines vs Uzbekistan (Play-off for the 13th place)
14:00 – Iraq vs Saudi Arabia (Play-off for the 9th place)
15.15 – Afghanistan vs Bahrain (Play-off for the 9th place)
15.15 – China vs Palestine (Play-off for the 5th place)
16:30 – Oman vs Lebanon (Play-off for the 5th place)
17:45 – Qatar vs Thailand (Play-off for the 13th place)
19:00 – IRAN VS UAE (SEMIFINAL 1)
20:15 – AUSTRALIA VS JAPAN (SEMIFINAL 2)

Qatar’s iconic Katara Beach is currently playing host to the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Asian Qualifiers for the very first time. Asia’s finest beach soccer talent are in action as 16 nations go head to head to take one of three places in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2013 – Tahiti.

Iran team is participating in this edition as one of the title contenders and a candidate for qualification to FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2013 in Tahiti. Team Melli is joined in group “D” by the Philippines, Lebanon and Chine PR with high hope of being one of the two teams in the final on  January 26th, 2013.

No Iranian mercy for the Philippines

22 Jan. 2013 – Philippines 0-20 Iran

Iran inflicted severe pain on the Philippines on the first day qualifiers. The Persian side could not find a better way to send the message that they intend to go to their fifth FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup than by smashing the Philippine National side by a 20-goal margin.

Needless to say, this record-breaking goal difference has lifted the Iranians to the top of Group D, and gives them a tyrannical lead.

After Iran’s captain, Naderi, opened the scoring account in the sixth minute of the game, the goal-shower never ceased, with the ball hitting the back of Mercado’s net one too many times.

The heavy defeat puts Philippines in a very difficult position, with virtually no options to proceed to the next stage.

Iran will have to keep performing at their best against China and Iraq, if they want to seal their ticket to semifinals.

Goals: 0-1: Naderi, min. 6 (1); 0-2: Ahmadzadeh, min. 5 (1); 0-3: Boulokbashi, min. 0 (1); 0-4: Ahmadzadeh, min. 11 (2); 0-5: Naderi, min. 11 (2); 0-6: Boulokbashi, min. 6 (2); 0-7: Mokhtari, min. 6 (2); 0-8: Boulokbashi, min. 6 (2); 0-9: Mokhtari, min. 5 (2); 0-10: Mesigar, min. 0 (2); 0-11: Abdollahi, min. 10 (3); 0-12: Morshed, min. 9 (3); 0-13: Mokhtari, min. 8 (3); 0-14: Mesigar, min. 5 (3); 0-15: Mesigar, min. 5 (3); 0-16: Naderi, min. 3 (3); 0-17: Ahmedzadeh, min. 2 (3); 0-18: Ahmadzadeh, min. 1 (3); 0-19: Mokhtari, min. 0 (3); 0-20: Abdollahi, min. 0 (3);

Iran hammers Iraq to go top of the group

Iran topped Group D of the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup AFC qualifiers with a 10-3 win over Iraq in Doha, Qatar on Wednesday.