Tag: Marc Wilmots

Team Melli starts camp among concerns about Hong Kong riots.

Team Melli started its preparation for the match versus Hong Kong in the qualification rounds of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar.  The team held its first training session at 6 pm on Sunday with 13 players.

Marc Wilmots spoke with his players for about 5 minutes before commencing field training. The Team Melli head coach also held a few minutes of tactical discussion with his technical staff.

The 13 players who attended the camp are all domestic league players, the Legionnaires are due to join as of tomorrow.

Those presents were : Masoud Shojaei, Ehsan HajSafi, Vahid Amiri, Siavash Yazdani, Hossein Hosseini, Vouria Ghafouri, Ali Karimi, Alireza Biranvand, Mehdi Torabi, Ahmad Nourollahi, Rashid Mazaheri, Mohammad Hosein Kanani Zadegan and Mohammad Naderi

The squad started the warm training under the guidance of assistant coach Vahid Hashemian while Wilmots and his assistants observed from the sidelines. There was no goalkeepers coach present at this session.

 Meanwhile, there is a concern in the Iranian federation as to the suitability and safety of the players in Hong Kong which is currently undergoing political disturbances and also disruptions of operations in the International airport. The latest development Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China is that demonstrators have blocked the roads into and out of the airport built on reclaimed land on the island of Chek Lap Kok. It has only one bridge to the mainland.

Iran - Iraq Friendly international!

The Iranian Mehr news has reported that Iran will play a friendly match against Iraq in Basra in November of this year, according to a statement by Mehdi Taj.

On the occasion of the courtesy visit by Iraq’s Youth & Sports Minister to the National Teams Football training centre, accompanied by the president of the Iranian football federation, Mahdi Taj, confirmed that part of the bilateral agreement with the Iraqi side was arranging of friendly international matches hosted by both countries.

What seems to be quite odd with this news is that Iraq and Iran will be meeting in the AFC Asian Cup China 2023 second-round qualifiers in Basra on 14th Nov. It is not known if this supposedly friendly match is going to be played before or after the official AFC qualifier. It is highly unusual, in fact not even heard of, for two teams to arrange friendlies matches before meeting in an official competition.

It is unlikely for Team Melli under Marc Wilmots to attempt such endeavour. Mehdi Taj might have been referring to other national teams such as the U23 Omid team or U19.

Apart from the game against Iraq in November 2019, Team Melli’s last match in the second round of the AFC Asian qualifiers 2023 is on 09th Jun 2020 against Iraq in Azadi Stadium.

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).

Team Melli and Omid Team will set up joint Training camp.

Iran's Team Melli and Omid Team will be setting training camps at the same time and end up playing a friendly match after the conclusion of the camp at the national teams' Training camp in Tehran.

From 10th to the 15th of July, there will be a busy period for the national football federation teams in the training camps. The objective of this Team Melli camp includes further familiarization by Marc Wilmots with the team members.  Wilmots will be unable to call upon the foreign-based players of Team Melli and has to contend with the domestic league players.

However, in order for the Belgian coach to gain more knowledge of his players and to make changes as he deems necessary, this will be a good opportunity for him to discover further talents and proceed on his changes by allowing younger players the chance to perform.

Wilmots hopes to have a more solid idea for the team formation for the month of September and to organize a game on the official FIFA day. In the last two friendlies,  Wilmots used a mix of AFC Asian Cup and World Cup players in both the Syria and South Korean games. He is working on the team's weaknesses, including defending, and said he was looking to fix the team gradually. Nevertheless, Wilmots said he is pleased with his team performance in the last two matches, his first at the helm of Iran, and in his recent interview, he said that he is glad that former national team coach, Carlos Queiroz.he had left a good legacy for him.

On the other ground, there will be also another national team training. Iran's Omid Team Olympics hopefuls will set up camp at the same time sharing the facilities with the senior team.  Farhad Majidi , who has already set up a training camp in June, is looking to further improve the team for the much tougher assignment in Thailand in the qualifiers of the Olympics.

He will be focused on technical and psychological issues of the squad, which will mainly consist of previous players from the Omid team's past camps. Majidi will continue to invite new players for the camp, especially since there will be tough competition for places and players need to show their ability to be part of the Omid Team, Majidi said.

The young head coach of the Omid team who is hoping to qualify for the Olympic Games is looking forward to the match with the senior team. Wilmots and Majidi teams will play a competitive friendly at the end of the five-day camps, which is likely to be played on No. 2 ground that has a natural grass surface.

It is also likely that Pejman Montazeri, who has just announced his retirement from international football, will be honored and appreciated by his teammates in the same camp. Montazeri played for Team Melli for about 10 years and has represented Iran in the World Cup and Asian Cup.

Wilmots will continue his offensive style for Team Melli

Team Melli's head coach said that his team will continue playing an offensive style.

Marc Wilmots said in a post-match press conference after drawing 1-1 with South Korea " although it was a friendly game , in my opinion, it was a highly competitive match played at high level in front of a capacity stadium. Both teams showed a lot of resolve. I think the fans were quite satisfied and happy to watch such a match, in which  lot of opportunities were created by both teams.

Wilmots spoke about his experience in confronting South Korea in the 2014 World Cup and the difference between the two games: "I think the conditions are not comparable to this game. Currently, the league has ended for several weeks, but the Korean league is ongoing. Nevertheless, Iranian players were able to play a great game. They fought for every ball and were truly competitive.

The team's head coach noted that "our team will continue to attack. The Iranian team is a complete team and everyone is important and influential." Wilmots also said: "We had a good game. Although the match was friendly, it had a high quality. Congratulations to Bento on this game because his team had a lot of coordination and played good football. We observed how both teams wanted to win and saw an offensive display. My team prevented the Koreans from controlling the game. It's good that we had almost 10 scoring chances."

In response to a question about Iran's four wins against South Korea since the last time Korea won, Wilmots said: "These match can not be compared. The atmosphere of each game is different. Each game can have different conditions and circumstances. We tried to win this game. In the future, the same attitude will continue, and we will be offer more offensive options."

Team Melli draws away to Korea Rep.

South Korea and Iran played a 1-1 draw in the Seoul World Cup Stadium in an international friendly on Tuesday in front of a full capacity ground. The host opened the scoring when their leading scorer Hwang Woo-Sung took full advantage of a mix up between Team Melli’s defenders to lob the advancing Beiranvand on the 57th minute, but Iran soon responded when a corner kick by Rezaeian was met by Pouraliganji who scrambled the ball to hit Korean defender Kim Young-Gwon  and end up in the back of the net.

The action-packed match was entertaining from the start as both teams were geared for attack, and in the process, leaving both defenses vulnerable to counters. The host took the initiative against Iran at the start of the first half. Lee Jae-sung attempted a sharp left-foot cross on the right side in the sixth minutes but the Korean forwards could not take advantage. In the 7th minute, Hwang In-Beom's right-footed shot from the left of the box was blocked by a defensive wall.

In the first 15 minutes, the Koreans had a slight edge but stubborn Iran defense and a steady goalkeeping by Beiranvand , spoiled every Korean ambition. Lack of real threat by the Koreans emboldened Iran to attack and go forward

Iran finished a good set of passes with a medium-range shot from Fullback Rezaeian in front of the box in the 14th minute. In the 17th minute, Rezaeian's crossed inside the box, but Hajsafy attempted left-footed shot was blocked. Twenty minutes into the match, Torabi's right-footed shot from the inside of the box led to a sharp trajectory but missed the goal by inches. Both teams played a fierce battle to control the middle of the field in the first half. In the 23rd minute, Lee Jae-sung's through-pass allowed Sang-Joe to take a left-footed shot but Beiranvand deflected the ball to a corner. Then it was the turn of Korean keeper Joo Hyun-woo to make a save when Alireza Jahanbakhsh hit a long range shot from 40 meters. Jahanbakhsh, who received the ball from a counterattack in the 25th minute, had Ansarifard on his left with lots of space but he elected to go it alone. Iran then created several opportunities to attack and shoot taking advantage of the space between Korea’s defense and their midfielder. In the 37th minute, Ansarifard tried a medium range shot but did not get past Jo Hyun-woo. South Korea, who had desperately wanted to test Beiranvand, eventually managed to do so and created that opportunity. In the 41st minute, the Korean Ace Son Heung-min tried a powerful left-footed shot from the front of the box, but Beiranvand saved it to a corner. In the 43rd minute, Najang Ho volleyed the ball from a cross but hit the underside of Beiranvand’s crossbar and deflected away from the goal-line.

At the beginning of the second half, Iran introduced Noorollahi instead of Jahanbakhsh in order to boost the attack. Noorollahi 's mid-range shot hit the crossbar in the 50th minute depriving Iran from securing a deserved lead. But South Korea took the lead instead with Hwang Joo Ja's opening goal in the 57th minute. Kim Min-jae's long pass was blocked by the defenders who then clashed into each other, and Hwang Joo picked the loose ball and used a chip shot to beat goalkeeper Beiranvand in the box. Iran, who gave away the first goal, showed a strong performance by scoring the equalizer following a corner kick in the 62th minute. The corner by Rezaeian , hit the body of Pouraliganji , then deflected past defender Kim Young-kwon into his own goal. Iran managed to equalize in less than 4 minutes.

South Korea, brought in Lee Seung-woo, Sejong, and Lee Jung-hyo after the 75th minute, but missed out on Na Sang-ho, Baek Seung-ho and Hwang-in. Iran also responded with three substitutions of their own.

In the last quarter of second half, Son Heung-min hit a mid-range shot from outside of the box, but Beiranvand easily handled the shot .

The match ended with a 1-1 draw.  Both the coaches Paulo Bento and Marc Wilmots opted to limit the number of substitutions not to break the flow of the game and that resulted in attractive match. At the end, South Korea, which had hoped, and in some ways was desperate, to win against Iran for the first time in eight years, had to settle for a draw and swallowed up its pride.

In the meantime, both teams will continue their voyages in the second round of the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers starting September 2019.

The Koreans are desperate for a win against Team Melli

Paulo Bento, The Portuguese coach of South Korea who led his team to a 1-0 win against Australia, is determined to lead the team to victory against Iran too. South Korea, ranked 37th in the FIFA rankings, has been out-ranked 9th, 8th and 13th spots lower against the 21st ranked Iran, who are also the top ranking team in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). In the last five matches, Korea never won against the Iranians managing only one draw and four losses. Bento in his pre-match press conference at the PFC NFC (Training Center for Football) on October 10, said "We will continue to maintain the framework and style of our team even if we play an experimental team versus Iran," he said. "We are now building a team to make the right choices in the World Cup qualifiers." Bento said, "We will consider the technical and mental aspects of the players," "We will stick with our style of play and bring in the players we need." Bento is looking forward to the success of his aces Son hung min and Hwang Joon-jo.

How much is too much for Son Heung-min?

Son Heung-min has played a lot of soccer over the last 12 months, with minutes on the field seemingly outranked only by air miles.

It has some South Koreans wondering how much is too much.

The recently completed season with Tottenham Hotspur was intense enough, with almost 50 appearances as the club placed fourth place in the Premier League and progressed to the Champions League final before losing 1-0 against Liverpool in Madrid.

Through it all, he maintained a taxing schedule with South Korea's national team that included trips to the World Cup in Russia, the Asian Games in Indonesia and the Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates. And international friendlies on top, too.

Despite all that, the 26-year-old Son was called once again by South Korea coach Paulo Bento to fly from Europe to play 90 minutes in a low-key friendly against Australia last Friday and prepare for another exhibition against Iran in Seoul on Tuesday. There have been calls for the player to be given a break but that is unlikely to happen.

Wilmots advocating an offensive strategy

Iran national football team head coach Marc Wilmots said Monday his side will play attacking football with high-pressing tactics to beat South Korea in their upcoming friendly match.
Iran and South Korea will go head-to-head at Seoul World Cup Stadium in Seoul on Tuesday. Wilmots, who took over Iran's helm last month, said Team Melli will not sit back against the Taeguk Warriors, who have yet to suffer a defeat at home under their head coach Paulo Bento.
"The best defense is a good offense," Wilmots said at a pre-match press conference. "We will try to create many chances with a high-intensity pressing game."
Iran national football team head coach Marc Wilmots speaks at a press conference at Seoul World Cup Stadium in Seoul on June 10, 2019, one day ahead of his team's friendly football match against South Korea. (Yonhap)
"Since 2014, Son has grown a lot with experience from big tournaments like the UEFA Champions League," he said of the Tottenham Hotspur star. "Son is showing his best performance these days using his technique and experience."
Iran, ranked 21st in the latest FIFA rankings, have been one of the top nemeses to South Korea, currently No. 37 in the world. Iran have not suffered a defeat against South Korea since 2011. They collected four consecutive 1-0 wins before taking a scoreless draw in a World Cup qualifying match in August 2017.
Wilmots, 50, said he wants to maintain Iran's undefeated streak against South Korea.
"Iran and South Korea are rivals that motivate each other," he said. "But what I hate the most is losing. Many fans will root for South Korea tomorrow, but we'll try our best."

Wilmot's Press conference

In his pre-match press conference, the newly appointed head coach of Team Melli said: "The two friendly games are good opportunities for me to asses my players.”

Marc Wilmots, said on Wednesday prior to the game against Syria "I wish to start by mentioning two things. First, I always had a lot of respect for national customs and respect for senior players. I like to convey my condolences to one of the valued former Team Melli players, Naeem Saadavi, who lost his wife. There are things in life that are more important than football. Like family especially in Iranian society. I also congratulate you all on the end of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr.”

“We have two friendly games in which I can test my players," he said. “As for players’ fitness, I have to say some of the players have not played competitively since the end of the Persian Gulf League. Games against Syria and South Korea are great opportunities. Although our players are not in their ideal forms, I and the players like to play with full potential.”

Wilmots pointed out: "I am the coach who loves to have the possession of the ball, but at the same time I have always had a regular organized type of play where having the possession of the ball is to create scoring opportunities and mostly have that possession in the in the opponent's area. I applied that style both in Belgium and Ivory Coast.”

He also explained about the mechanism of selecting players in his first Team Melli squad : "When you are new in the job and do not know a country, it's best to refer to recent back records. So, that is how I did it until I familiarize myself and know the style of each squad member, and then I choose from them as deemed necessary. After these two games, I try to look for new players and invite potential talents to the squad. Youth should be added to Team Melli.”

Asked about the game plan and his style, Wilmots responded "It depends on the type of players we have. We do not have Saman Ghoddos and Sardar Azmoun in the team. I have to create a balanced style between defensive and offensive game plan. I do not have anything to do with what have been implemented before me and shall follow my own style. If in the last 8 years the team has concentrated on defensive style, he may want to continue to play that way, but I'm the coach who would like to play an offensive game and push the opponent's team to the limit. We have 3 years to the next World Cup.”

 

Wilmots also said about the future plan for Iranian football during his tenure "It's not important to for me to seek FIFA Ranking (…) but it's important to qualify to the World Cup for the third consecutive time. We try to provide a balanced game style. Of course, that depends on the opponent as well. If you play against Brazil, you will not be able to have the possession of the ball as much. We will try to use Team Melli players in their same post that they play in their clubs. We cannot change players in three training sessions. I did this in the Belgian national team and it was successful. We will closely view and monitor Iran games.”

Team Melli will play its first game under Wilmots on Thursday 6th June In Azadi Stadium.

Marc Wilmots leads first Team Melli practice session.

The first training session of Team Melli lead by Marc Wilmots was carried today with the presence of assistant coach Vahid Hashemian .

Prior to start of the session, the players and technical staff of Team Melli team handed flowers bouquets to the media personnel present at the training ground as a gesture of appreciation. . Persepolis players, who were scheduled to play the final of the Hazfi Cup in Ahvaz were absent today. Apart from Beiranvand, Torabi and Noorolahi, from Persepolis, the injured Rashid Mazaheri and  Sardar Azmoun were absent from the session.

Hossein Hosseini has replaced Mazaheri in the squad. The players started with a warm up run along the ground, then the group training consisted of practice with single-shot passes and stretching exercises. During the training, Ramin Rezaeian made errors in executing one or two moves, which forced Wilmots to give him a reminder.

The training continued in several routines under continuous instructions from Wilmots. Despite the various issues with the official sponsor of Team Melli kit, the team was wearing the Adidas kit, but it seems that the use of this kit is not expected to last for long. Media  were asked to leave after 25 minutes to allow Wilmots the freedom of continuing his work.

Mehdi Taj's masterstroke!

Mehdi Taj and the FFIRI have to be credited for the appointment of Marc Wilmots as head coach of Team Melli replacing Queiroz.

The Iranian federation FFIRI faced many obstacles in their quest to replace Queiroz beginning from the Finances, or lack of it , to political objections, to social issues and the strong local lobbies.

The lack of funds is by now a common knowledge. Despite the lack of transparency by FFIRI including no audited balance sheet that is publically available to answer discrepancies such as the alleged disappearance of large amount of payments awarded to FFIRI during the reign Ali Kaffashian, the federation has been suffering from lack of resources for years.  Transfer of salary through normal banking channels to a foreign coach is also a great challenge thanks to one Donald Trump and his American sanctions.

It is that sanction that prompted many politicians and hardliners to question the appointment of a foreign coach and thus the wasting of rare hard currency on football while large sectors of industry and other services were in dire need of that cash and hard currency. It was certainly a legitimate question particularly that this football has yielded nothing for the country since the revolution particularly the trophy that really matters for the Iranians, the AFC Asian Cup.

Compared to other sports, football has one of the lowest returns of investment  and yields in the country yet the people associated with it are the highest paid of them all, some of whom make astronomical figures comparatively.

Socially speaking, the question foreign coach appointment has always been divisive debate in Iran. A large number of fans question such appointments based on issues such as communication, language, culture, logistics and most importantly, cost.

The other factor in this endless debate is the strong lobbying by influential people in Iran’s football. Ex-players, coaches, administrators and managers who strongly support the appointment of one of their own.

That reservation on foreign coach is responded to by the other camp who believe that Iranian coaches are not suitable or favorable at this time. Ali Daei, a legendary figure in his own right, lost his job in an un-ceremonial fashion after losing to Saudi Arabia at Azadi in a World Cup qualifier match.

Before him, Amir Ghalenoei, who is by far the most successful Iranian league club coach, tried but failed to achieve success in the AFC Asian Cup 2007.

Mansour Ebrahimzadeh was an interim coach but he was a disaster losing all the 3 matches Team Melli played under him. Finally Afshin Ghotbi, who is technically an American citizen, who failed to deliver in AFC Asian Cup 2011

In reality, in this period, there is no good Iranian candidate for Team Melli. From experience to knowledge to discipline to modern football tactics awareness and many more aspects, it is clear that Iranian coaches have a lot to learn.

Taj and his men had to navigate all those hurdles and skillfully managed to come up with the correct decision.

So, without bias, the appointment of Marc Wilmots is a masterstroke carried out under immense pressure. Mehdi Taj deserves much credit for such a move, notwithstanding the shortfalls in his administration and  lack of transparency.  Certainly there remains a lot to be corrected at FFIRI, but credit must be given were credit is due