Tag: Aref Gholami

Dragan Skočić, drops 5 Esteghlal players from Team Melli camp.

Team Melli head coach, Dragan Skočić, dropped 5 Esteghlal players from the national team training camp today. According to press reports, Skocic removed the names of 5 players after their "no show" for training. Hamid Estili, the manager of the national football team, told ISNA: "These players were supposed to introduce themselves to the national team camp at 5 pm yesterday (Monday) and then get a release to go to the Esteghlal's camp with the permission of the head coach, but they did not do so. They neither turned up nor informed us. They went directly to their club's camp."

The Esteghlal players are : Aref Gholami, Seyed Hossein Hosseini, Mehdi Mehdipour, Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh and Saleh Hardani. It is not clear if this move by Skocic is a long term one, but it seems that these player's chances of making it to the trip to Latin America are quite slim, but more importantly, it will be even a slimmer chance of anyone of them making the final list to the World Cup unless a strong reason is provided by Farhad Majidi, the team's head coach and the Esteghlal management.

Esteghlal has won this seasons League title undefeated. They received the trophy yesterday after the match against Naft Masjed Soleiman.

UPDATE

In the latest development, Esteghlal club swiftly reacted to the dropping of the players by issuing an official apology! The statement read: "Following the recent events which resulted in the expulsion of Esteghlal players selected for Team Melli training camps, we would like to inform the general public that the club has always acted in good faith in interacting with the national football team of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and considers itself obligatory to help the country's representatives. In the recent case, unfortunately, despite the previous announcement of Team Melli's head coach on the importance of the attendance of all players from the first day of the camp, there were discrepancies (..) in the planning of last week's league matches, which caused negligence of our part. The team Melli leader issued a disciplinary action. Esteghlal Club is aware of its role in this incident and accepts its responsibility. Therefore, while supporting and apologizing to Mr. Skocic for interrupting the national team training camp, we ask him to reinstate the 5 dropped  Esteghlal players to the camp. Attending the camp and wearing the national team's sacred shirt is the pride of Esteghlal Club. The club management supports and wishes Mr. Skocic and the Iranian national team all the success in their quest for the World Cup in Qatar, emphasizing our backing for the national team."

3 Team Melli players leave camp after positive corona test results!

Team Melli's first training session was held today in preparation for the friendly match against Syria.

The team is camping at at the National Football Center and the session started from 11:30 am today (Wednesday). After the start of training, Dragan Skocic briefed the players for a few minutes, then followed by various exercises.. Team Melli is missing a few regulars this time mostly due to travel restriction due to covid19. Amir Abedzadeh was not invited to the camp due to quarantine laws on Madeira Island in Portugal , Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Saman Ghoddos due to flight restrictions from England, Morteza PouraliGanji and Sadegh Moharrami are both on the injury list while and Kaveh Rezaei has tested positive for coronavirus. Meanwhile, Mehdi Ghaedi, Aref Gholami and Mohammad Rashid Mazaheri, all three players from Esteghlal, left the camp due to  positive corona test. This training session lasted for 70 minutes with a focus on light physical work. The second training session will be conducted tomorrow (Thursday).    

9 players in the initial Team Melli list

According to FFIRI Official website, nine layers have already been selected for Team Melli camp from Esteghlal, Sepahan, Tractorsazi and Foolad Khuzestan. The next list will be announce3d after the Al Nasr vs Persepolis game in the Finals of the AFC Champions League West region in Doha today. The selected players are: GHAYEDI, Mehdi (Esteghlal) GHOLAMI, Aref  (Esteghlal) HAJSAFY, Ehsan (Tractorsazi) HOSSEINI, Majid  (Esteghlal) KARIMI, Ali  (Esteghlal) MAZAHERI, Rashid (Tractorsazi) NAJJARIAN, Mojtaba (Foolad Khuzestan) NIAZMAND, Payam (Sepahan) NOORAFKAN, Omid (Sepahan)  

Team Melli and Omid football team met today in Azadi Stadium at 18:30 in a friendly match. The match ended in a one-on-one draw.

Mehrdad Mohammadi scored in the 13th minute for the Team Melli while Abolfazl Razzaghpour scored for the Omid team in the 65th minute.

Team Melli played in Red under Marc Wilmots and Farhad Majidi’s Omid Team played in white outfits.

 First half

In the 11th minute and on the first serious attack, Mehrdad Mohammadi scored the opening goal of the match after a smart move from the right side followed by a neat strike.

After the goal, the match was balanced without much serious threats on either goals.

19th minute, Alireza Arta, who had penetrated into Team Melli half attempted a shot but it ended just over the bar of Rashid Mazaheri goal.

22nd minute, the game was paused by a rough tackle by Aref Gholami on Shahriar Moghanlou. For a few minutes, the doctors treated him and the player eventually continued to play without difficulty. Following the brief pause, the technical game and technical movements of the Team Melli players for the next period was countered by some rough tackling from Omid Team players !.

29th minute, Mehrdad Mohammadi could have scored the second but his powerful long-range shot was a whisker away.

40th minute, Mohammad Moslemipour missed a good chance to score the equalizer

The first half of the game ended 1-0 in favour of Wilemots players.

second half

in the second half, a complete new Team Melli showed up. Farhad Majidi also substituted several players, including Reza Jabeirah for Ghaedi, Mohammad Amin Asadi, for Azadi and Mohammad KhodabandehLo, for Babaei.

In the second half, most of the Team Melli's attacks came from the right-hand side, and a Peyman Ranjbari was initiating most of the attacks.

50th minute, another goal-scoring chance was missed for Team Melli.

63rd minute, a mistake in Omid defence by Taha Shariati and quick move of Saeed Vasei's, who robbed the ball and sent it to Peyman Ranjbari, but the striker could not reach it and missed a golden chance.

66th minute, misunderstanding in Team Melli defence between Mohammad Mohebi and Ahmad Gowhari, resulted in a goal. Quick thinking Abolfazl Razzaghpour took the Opportunity to score Omid Team’s equalizer from an acute angle.

67th minute, Mohammad Naderi shoots from the corner to the right of Team Melli's penalty area, but his ball missed the target.

73rd minute, Ali Karimi’s nice cross was met by Peyman Ranjbari who headed powerfully, Nima Mirzazad saved well for a corner.

80th minute: the injury to Peyman Ranjbari, Shahriar Moghanlou returned back to the pitch.

87th minute, another chance missed by Team Melli, Omid defence sending the ball to a corner at last gasp.

The match did not have any yellow or red cards, but there were the occasional rough tackles that derived to punished by a card.

TEAM MELLI

First half: Rashid Mazaheri, Mohammad Hossein Moradmand, Siavash Yazdani, Daniel Esmaeilifar, Saeed Aghaei, Reza Asadi, Amir Hossein Karimi, Mehrdad Mohammadi, Mohammad Karimi, Arash Rezavand and Shahriar Moghanlou.

Second half: Ahmad Gowhari (Mehdi Amini, 67), Peyman Ranjbari, Mohammad Mohebbi, Ali Karimi, Imani Salimi, Saeed Vasei, Mohammad Ansari, Mehdi Shiri, Majid Alyari, Mohammad Naderi, Ahmad Abdollahzadeh.

Omid Team:

Me’araj Esmaeli (Nima Mirzadeh 45), Alireza Arta (Mohammad Aghajanpour 34), Aref Gholami, Taha Shariati, Muslimpour (Abolfazl Razzaghpour 45), Ismail Babaei (Mohammad Khodabandelo 45), Mehdi Mehdikhani (Reza Karimi 34) (Reza Shekari 45), Seyyed Mohammad Khorram Hosseini, Mehdi Ghaedi (Reza Jabeireh 45), Amir Roustaei (Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh 34) and Mohammad Reza Azadi (Mohammad Amin Asadi 45).