Tag: Alireza Jahanbakhsh

Sardar Azmoun Named Top Goal Scorer of Russian Football League

For the second time in history, an Iranian player wins the League Top Scorer in Europe

Sardar Azmoun,  Team Melli and Zenit Saint Petersburg center forward, has finished the 2019/20 season at the Russian Premier League as the top goal scorer after scoring the winner against FC Rostov in the season’s last fixture. Match ended 2-1 for the champion.

Both Azmoun and teammate Artem Dzyuba played 28 games, with both forwards scoring 17 goals, but the Iranian was ahead of the Russian striker by virtue of fewer goals from the penalty spot. Azmoun scored one penalty, whereas Dzyuba scored seven.

In the history of the RPL, Azmoun is the third Zenit player to finish a season as top scorer.
Much was expected of Azmoun when he was snapped up by Rubin Kazan as an 18-year-old, and he has grown to become a superstar of Asian football.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh finished the 2017-18  Dutch Eredivise as the top scorer with 21 goals. Jahanbakhsh becomes the first Asian ever to finish as the highest-scoring player in an Eredivisie campaign.

Now Azmoun is repeating a similar feat by becoming the first Asian player to win the top scorer title in Russia, and the second Iranian player to achieve this honor in a European league.

Azmoun is both the youngest Iranian to score in a Champions League game, as well as the Iranian record-holder for the most goals scored in UEFA Champions League games, having scored 4 goals in the two seasons he has taken part in the tournament. Azmoun has a great chance to add to his tally as Zenit has qualified for next season UEFA Champions League.

Azmoun is now linked to several top European football teams, from AC Milan, Napoli, and Lazio in Italy to Arsenal and West Ham in England. It is reported that Azmoun’s agent has already met this week with Napoli owner discussing players transfers.

Bad news all over for Iran’s football.

If you are a die-hard fan of Iranian football, the bad news coming out of Iran is enough to send one into depression.

It seems that since Carlos Queiroz left the country to seek his fortunes in Latin America with the Colombian National team, hardly anything has gone right for Team Melli and Iran’s football in general. It all started with the recruitment of Marc Wilmots, a coach who has been sacked in his last two jobs with the latest appointment lasting only six months with the Ivory Coast. For the first time in decades, Team Melli suffered two consecutive defeats and that was in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

There have been a lot of secret talks and behind the scene negotiation to find a competent and true replacement for the legendary Queiroz. The odds on that were quite low for a lot of reasons. Not only the leading and the renowned coaches were already active coaching teams and thus not available, the second tiers looking for a job, did not put Iran’s Team Melli coaching on the top of their priority. Any potential foreign coach fancied the job but examined Queiroz’s experience in Iran or heard about the pandemonium in the football federation management with several layers of governance making decisions, would have thought twice before indulging in such an adventure.

Not surprisingly there were no quality takers for the job. Is this a Queiroz curse ?!

 Then came the real shock. While the masses were waiting for an Amir Ghalenoei or an Ali Daei to take over the helm, there comes an outsider and takes over the chair. To the utter shock of many, Dragan Skocic, a Croat who was coaching Sanat Naft was announced as Head Coach of Team Melli and assumed responsibility without much fanfare.

While the Croat enthusiastically started his mission by building rapport in preparing for the two upcoming matches, the coronavirus struck and chances of the fans seeing Skocic in action is delayed for at least 3 or 4 months.

Team Melli at least has a leader in Skocis, the football federations do not. The leadership struggles, political interference, influences, and the circus, continues in the head-less FFIRI. Mehdi Taj was forced to resign citing ill-health while the government is looking for an obedient regime stooge to install him as President of the Federation in the upcoming election!

FIFA got hold of these games and finally put its foot down hard on the authorities and the FFIRI itself declaring any elections under the current conditions and rules will not be recognized by FIFA unless the FFIRI amends its statute and rules in compliance with the international football law governance.

Away from Team Melli, Iranian clubs in the AFC Champions league displayed their worst performances and results ever with one solitary win in 8 matches. It was not only the results that were disappointing but the manner of defeats and the amateurish attitudes of the Iranian players with a lack of character and professionalism that hurt the most.

The so-called professional football league devoid of proper competition is full of drama, however, yet nothing like what Sepahan club did when they refused to turn up for the match against Persepolis in their home ground Naghsh Jehan stadium in Esfahan for. These things belong to the fifties and in Europe, such acts may result in relegation to lower divisions, but the FFIRI disciplinary committee like the rest of the federation is as incompetent as the rest of the federation. When it comes to applying strict discipline and punitive measures.

And then there are players who receive a cheque from one club to turn up playing for another club in a league match!

The initial enthusiasm of Iranian legionnaires in Europe all but evaporated with one player after another struggling to make the starting line-up. Even Sardar Azmoun was benched in Zenit last match with Jahanbakhsh remaining a solid benchwarmer in Brighton, Ezattolahi making a rare cameo appearance in a lowly Belgian league club and Taremi losing that initial goalscoring brilliant run of his in the Portuguese league.

Very little good news to report from Iran’s football. Perhaps it needs a real shake-up and severe jolt for it to recover again.

Crystal Palace chasing Sardar Azmoun with a lucrative offer.

Crystal Palace is actively seeking squad reinforcement in the January Transfer windows market. Roy Hodgson needs reinforcements if they want to maintain their current status and look forward to one of the qualifying places in European competitions.

Crystal Palace is in no man’s land at the moment, after a great start to the season. The Selhurst Park team has some shortcomings and needs to go to the winter market if it wants to maintain some peace of mind in the remainder of the season. According to ‘Sport-Express’, The Iranian Sardar Azmoun, Zenit St. Petersburg forward, would be on the top of the list and object of desire of the board of the English team in the month of January.

The Team Melli player arrived at the Russian giant in February in exchange for about 12 million euros and signed a three and a half years contract with St. Petersburg until 2022.
Roy Hodgson already made it clear at a press conference that he wants several signings and Azmoun tops the list. if his transfer is completed, The Iranian would be the most expensive player in the history of his country. Currently, Alireza Jahanbakhsh holds the record with 12 million pounds.

CRYSTAL PALACE ADVANCES WITH € 30 MILLION BY AZMOUN
Sardar Azmoun has been a pivotal player in the Zenit squad along his Russian international Artem Dzyuba, the Iranian striker forms an attacking duo that helped lift the St. Petersburg team to the top spot in the championship.

The good performances have not gone unnoticed and Azmoun has aroused the greed of several clubs. According to Sport Express, Crystal Palace is willing to pay Zenit € 30 million on market reopening. The South London side will have already contacted the Russians but has not yet received a reply.

A product of Sepahan’s youth Academy, Azmoun joined Zenit in 2018 after excelling at Rostov. In total, he scored 23 goals in 41 matches.

Finally……Jahanbakhsh scores.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Brighton and Hove Albion and Team Melli winger, finally opened his scoring in the 3rd minute of the match against Bournemouth in the English Premier League on Saturday.

Jahanbakhsh, a record signing for the Brighton club failed to score any goals last season. With a  new boss in-charge at Brighton, Jahanbaksh was relegated to the bench but on many occasions, he did not even make the bench in the Premier League matches. opportunities.

Today’s match line up by Graham Potter was a Pleasant Surprise for the Iranian International as Jahanbakhsah was not even in the squad for the last match Brighton played the Premier League. On the third minute, Alireza smashed a powerful diagonal shot into the bottom far corner of the Bournemouth goal.

Jahanbakhsh was clearly emotional during his goal celebration with all his teammates surrounding him. Finally, he broke the jinx and scored. Not only he opened his account with the club, but he also set the record for the earliest goal in Brighton’s history in the Premier League.

Jahanbakhsh went on to play until the 84th minute when he was then substituted to receive a standing ovation from the appreciative Brighton fans at the American Express Stadium.

Jahanbakhsh has have been left out of the Team Melli squad in the last two matches. He missed both the defeats against Bahrain and Iraq.

 

Wilmots “We at least deserved a draw, we were unlucky”

The head coach of Iran’s Team Melli says his team did not deserve the losses against Bahrain and Iraq!

Marc Wilmots, in the post-match press conference following the loss to Iraq, said  “We had a tough 15 minutes at the start of the game. Then we conceded a goal but soon recovered and took control. We made some mistakes in the second half and we ended up with 10 players. This defeat forces us to get maximum points out of the remaining matches in order to advance to the next round.”

Asked what plans he has to achieve this qualification, Wilmots responded:

 “We are doing our best for home games as well as the one away game against Cambodia,”. Commenting on his team’s two consecutive World Cup qualifying defeats, The Belgian coach said” We could have at least got two points in the two games against Bahrain and Iraq, but that didn’t happen. Perhaps it is better to say that we were unlucky and both matches could have ended in a draw”

Wilmots commenting on the playing conditions and whether the defeat was a consequence of the red card given to Team Melli’s Captain Masoud Shojaei “ I have been in football for 30 years. One should never blame any individual for a defeat. We are all to be blamed for the failure and not just one player. We had some mistakes in this game. We made some mistakes in defensive covering. On top of that, we were short in the last 10 minutes.” Wilmot’s claims that some the Iranian media is blaming the failure on the absence of Jahanbakhsh and Saeid Ezatollahei. “ It is not like what it sounds. Jahanbakhsh and Ezatollahei have not played for a while. In addition, we did not have Haji Safi due to injury in the match.”

Mixed fortunes of Kaveh Rezaei and Alireza Jahanbakhsh

Kaveh Rezaei has returned back to scoring in the Belgian First Division League

The Iranian striker’s return to the scoring process was long due. on Saturday night in Sporting Charleroi’s 14th league match of the season at Mechelen’a AFAS Stadion, Rezaei scored the opener in the 11th minute for Charleroi. The match ended in a 2-2 draw. It was the second match in a row that Kaveh Rezai finds the net.
Last week, the former Team Melli player scored the winner for his team away at KV Oostende with a late goal.


The Belgian media reports mentioned Kaveh Rezaei’s scoring and brilliance had a clear message that the Iranian player was able to return to the scoring process again with confidence. Rezaei did not have a good time at Club Brugge due to loss of form after a prolonged injury. Although he was picked up for several matches and showed good touches, he was unable to meet expectations at the champions. However, when he returned to Sporting Charleroi’s, he was able to regain some of the confidence he lost and improve his form to show the coach that he is a goal scorer with a lot of confidence.
Karim Belhocine, the French coach of Charleroi is now counting on Rezaei to reach his peak days, marking the end of the torrid days for Kaveh.
Charleroi is currently ranked sixth in the standings with 22 points from 13 matches.

 

One Iranian player who has not experienced the same joy and success is Alireza Jahanbakhsh. Brighton’s most expensive player who topped the scoring chart only two years ago in the Dutch league has failed to score any goal last season and is still out of sight in Brighton’s matches. Once again, Jahanbakhsh did not even make the bench in last Saturday’s Brighton 2-0 win at home against Norwich.

With the new coach Graham Potter, Jahanbakhsh role has been relegated to the bench or under 23 team. This season 2019/2020 The Team Melli winger has managed to be on the bench for 3 matches out of 11 Brighton has played in the Premier Leauge.
Jahanbakhsh who desperately needs a confidence booster has been left out of Team Melli’s last squad and will probably be out again against Iraq.  Marc Wilmots, desperate himself for a good result against Iraq on the 14th of November, will be looking at players who are at their best as he has no room for trials and sentiments.

 

Analyzing Wilmots’ selection.

Marc Wilmots started his first official match with Team Melli in the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers with a 2-0 win away to Hong Kong, is determined to build his own team rather than rely on the previous one created by Queiroz.

Morteza Mansouri
Morteza Mansouri (Sepahan)

In an evolutionary move, the Belgian head coach of Iran’s national team made a few changes to his players’ list for the next two matches against Cambodia at home and away to Bahrain. Wilmots is determined to show that he plans to evaluate and pick new players. The new squad list indicates that the Belgian coach has a great deal of confidence in the domestic League players, unlike his predecessor.

Wilmots invited Mohammad Mohebbi (21 Years) and Morteza Mansouri (29 years), two key players for current league leader Sepahan, for the first time. Wilmots’ decision to continue including Siavash Yazdani and Mohammad Naderi’s in the squad is another proof that he has much confidence in the domestic league players.

Although neither Yazdani or Naderi played in the match against Hong Kong, however, they were preferred over the experienced but ageing Vouria Ghafouri of Esteghlal. The four new players along with the regular defence players Majid Hosseini, Morteza Pouraliganji, Hossein Kanan-Zadegan will significantly lower the overall average age of Team Melli squad

The most notable omission in the list, however, must be the exclusion of Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who has been a regular fixture in the national team’s camps for the past seven years. Jahanbakhsh has just recovered from a slight knee injury and was a non-utilized bench player in today’s 3-0 Brighton win against Tottenham Hotspurs in the English Premier League.

Jahanbakhsh has been having an unfortunate time since his move to Brighton at the beginning to last season. The record signing by Brighton failed to score a single goal in all competitions last season. With the change of the head coach, Jahanbakhsh failed to even make it on the bench for his club and has yet to feature in the Premier League this season. His performance with Team Melli in the AFC Asian Cup was far from brilliant either.

Wilmots has also created a serious competition in goal for the ever-present Alireza Biranvand. In contention for the number one spot in the goal are Payam Niazmand and Mohammad Rashid Mazaheri, who have both managed to keep a clean sheet record after six weeks of Persian Gulf Premier League competition matches.

Biranvand, despite some flashes of brilliance, with the penalty save from Cristiano Ronaldo is the top of his achievements, has many suspect moments and quite a questionable temperament. Many critics believe that Niazmand is a better goalkeeper but lacks the international experience of Beiranvand.

Persepolis with five players, Tractorsazi Tabriz with four and Sepahan Isfahan with three players have the highest number in the new list of Team Melli squad. Esteghlal also has only two players after Vouria Ghafouri and Seyyed Hossein Hosseini were crossed off the final list.

Team Melli will play against Cambodia on Thursday, October 10, in Tehran and then travel to Bahrain to play against their national team on October 15th.

PSV expresses interest in Jahanbakhsh

EINDHOVEN – After the arrival of Kostas Mitroglou, PSV wants a player for the attack, to solidify its formation in Europe ahead of a long season and, above all, to take on the title battle with Ajax. PSV plays chess on several boards at the same time, the main candidates being the Japanese Ritsu Doan and Iranian Alireza Jahanbakhsh, the man who was the top scorer of the Eredivisie at AZ more than a year ago. The managers of Eindhoven are just waiting for the last week before the transfer deadline to make their move.

The Argentinian Nicolas Ivan Gonzalez of VfB Stuttgart was the number two on the list behind Doan of FC Groningen. PSV had done their preliminary work with his agent, but when he reported back to his club, the answer was clear: Silence. PSV knows from previous experiences with Feyenoord striker Steven Berghuis this transfer summer what that could mean. A transfer fee that the club does not want to pay or a negotiation that will last far too long for comfort, which is a risk the club cannot take now.

Japanese Doan has long been number one, but PSV will not pay the hefty transfer fee demanded by FC Groningen. The club demands an amount towards the fourteen million euros plus a substantial resale percentage. PSV had a maximum of eight million euros in mind plus some extras. That gap is too big, Doan’s business manager is trying to get the northerners to agree on a more reasonable fee.

Jahanbakhsh is the (cheaper) alternative. PSV wants to take the Iranian international on loan for a year from his club Brighton & Hove Albion and hopes to hear soon whether he will be released.

So far the managers of Eindhoven were told that Jahanbakhsh the right-winger transferred from AZ last year for 25 million euros is not available for the loan. Current manager Graham Potter plays in a 5-3-2 system, Jahanbakhsh a wing-back. However, for the third time in a row against Southampton Jahanbakhsh was not in the squad, which could offer an opening in the last week of the transfer window for his transfer. That he hardly played for a year is not a big problem for PSV. Jahanbakhsh was a top player in the Eredivisie, knows what is being asked from him and is above all a different type of attacker than the club has in-house.

Marc von Bommel

For example, PSV has Mohamed Ihattaren and Gaston Pereiro, when he returns in two months from a fracture of the collarbone, have the passers and creative players who could play the role intended for Doan from the right. PSV looks at players who are complementary to each other and offer extra possibilities in the way of playing within the current selection. Jahanbakhsh does not only bring scoring ability, but he could also serve the (incoming) goal-getter Mitroglou (in phases) with his moves.

If coach Mark van Bommel wants to use Doan at ‘ten’, Bergwijn can move to the place where he grew into as an international player (on the flank). Only Doan has played most of his matches in Groningen from the right and he immediately gets a big responsibility at a top club, with a hefty price tag around his neck. Again, one that PSV does not want to comply with. If the situation remains the same and if Jahanbakhsh is kept to his contract with Brighton, PSV will act towards the next candidate in the last days before the deadline.

Alireza Jahanbakhsh status in Brighton in jeopardy.

For the second match in a row, Alireza Jahanbakhsh did not make the 18 man squad for Brighton & Hove Albion match against  West Ham. Jahanbakhsh was left out of the team for the first match of the new Premier League season away to Watford which Brighton won 3-0, and then he was again omitted from the squad for the home game against West Ham which ended in a draw 1-1.

It seems that the Seagulls’ coach Graham Potter has little belief in the ability of the Team Melli winger to produce the goods in the Premier League. After a difficult season last year marred by injury and absence from Brighton team for the AFC Asian Cup, Jahanbakhash failed to sparkle despite his record signing from Alkmaar. The top scorer of the Dutch League failed to score a single goal for Brighton.

Despite his failure to score, the former Brighton coach had a lot of confidence in Jahanbakhsh as’s abilities and skill as he was on the top of Houghton’s pecking order upfront.  However, Houghton was using Jahanbakhash in the role of a wingback rather than a forward. The Iranian had to be available to defend when the team was under attack. That was one of the reasons, but certainly not THE reason, for his lack of scoring. Statistics of last season shows that Jahanbakhsh was not getting much goal scoring opportunity but was used more as a provider on the flanks.

Whatever the case was for last season disappointing performance, Jahanbakhsh’s chances to be part of the Brighton lineup seems to be quite slim and him lasting in the club, to be in doubt. The Transfer window in Europe is still open until 2nd September. One way out of this situation is for Brighton to seek a buyer for Jahanbakhsh. Rumours of the Iranian returning back to the Eredivisie with his former club started a couple of weeks back but it seems to have died down quite quickly.

Jahanbakhsh himself remains hopeful to return back to form to gain the confidence of Graham Potter. With the fine performance of the current squad, the competition for places in the team is quite tough. Jahanbakhsh really needs to work extra hard to convince the boss of his value else his future in Brighton and the premier league is in jeopardy

Krim Ansarifard in the Qatar Star League

The former Nottingham Forest player and Team Melli centre forward, Karim Ansarifard signed a 2-year contract with Al Sailiya Sports Club in Doha.

Al-Sailiya SC is managed by the Tunisian Sami Trabelsi and Ansarifard is the only non-Arab player in the squad which is mainly formed of north African and Sudanese players.

Last season, the club ended the season in a very respectable 3rd position behind champions Al Sadd and runners up Al Duhail. This was one of the best rankings of Al Sailiya in Qatar Star league. Ansarifard, whose contract with English Championship club Nottingham forest has run out, had a few good seasons in Greece before moving to England and the disappointment of Nottingham Forest. In 2017/18 season, the 29 years old Ansarifard played in the Greek League for Olympiakos Piraeus where he scored 17 goals in 26 matches. However, in England, Ansarifard only managed 3 goals in 12 matches without securing a starting place in the line up of coach O’Neil.

Nottingham Forest had to endure a lot before managing to secure the signature of Ansarifard last season after eventually getting his work permit sorted out, but after all that effort the striker was to warm the bench for most of the season!

England has never been a successful playing ground for Iranian internationals and despite the small number of them playing in England, none of the Iranians managed to claim success. Jahanbaksh, the Top Scorer of the Eredivisie, was bought by Brighton for a record fee, but he could not score a single goal in the Premier League or other competitions with his team in a full season. It is to be noted however that Jahanbakhsh only played 19 games for Brighton missing many due to injury and then the AFC Asian Cup 2019 while he was away with Team Melli.