All hopes of young Iranians making their mark in the Valentine Granatkin memorial tournament were dashed when they lost the final match of the group A againt Slovakia 2-1. Iran was leading the table with 6 points from 2 games ahead of their European opponent but failed to stamp their mark when it was most needed. Despite having a large percentage of ball possession , the failure by the young Iranians to convert their chances was their Achilles heels. Slovakia , playing strong and aggressive football managed to score two goal from much less chances than Iran. Iran were shocked when only 3 minutes passed , The Slovakian forward Haraslim pounced on an opportunity and opened the scoring for the Slovaks. Iran's response was , however, quite swift. Najarian scored Iran's goal 5 minutes later to restore parity in the game. While Team Melli U-19 was slowly taking a hold of the game, they were once again stunned when the referee awarded a penalty for the Slovaks which Haraslin the scorer of the first goal, converted to make it 2-1 for his team. The first half ended with the Slovak leading but with difficulty. All hopes for Iran's recovery in the second half were met with strong and disciplined Slovakian defense. The several chances the Iranians had were all wasted in a profligate manner by the young players. With this loss , Iran will be playing for the 5th to 8th place in this major youth tournament . The next match will be on the 10th January against Slovenia.

Match № 18

The match № 18, group A, fifth tournament day I. R. IRAN – SLOVAKIA 1:2 (1:2) January 7th, 2014, Saint-Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 300 spectators Goals: Haraslin (3, 20, pen.), Najarian (8) Referees: Nikolay Voloshin, Aleksey Manin, Denis Savin I. R. Iran: Amini, Salimi, Hosseini (c), Sarlak, Aghaei, Bazaj, Seyyedi, Haghnazari, Moharrami, Najarian, Hashemi (Sohrabian, 46) Head coach: Ali Doustimehr Slovakia: Bajza, Vavro, Slaninka (Rajnik, 86), Vodezcky (Lovas, 90), Kacher (Siplak, 90), Gric, Shpalek (Vlchek, 89), Berejny, Kupec, Haraslin (c), Chvatal (Kotrik, 67) Head coach: Milan Malatinsky   Yellow cards: Salimi (41), Aghaei (79), Kacher (79) Best players: Armin Sohrabian, Denis Vavro  

Post match comments Head coach of  Iran Doustimehr Ali: – I congratulate  Slovakia for their deserved victory. Their players showed their best during the game, played organized in the defense and made quick attacks. We couldn't transfer our domination into the goal. – Your team had several good long distant shots in the first half. Why did you stop using it in the second half and preferred to come to penalty area where the defense was much more solid? – Slovakian team played very compact, closed all areas and created opportunities  even for outside the box. That is why we wanted to play wider, use our wings more often and send the ball from sides to the penalty area. But our opponent had a well-organized defense and stopped all our attempts. But I should note also the referee's mistakes. Through his faults the penalty kick he called was not fair and other time the penalty kick can be pointed to our favor. – Football in Iran is improving. Do you think your players have aspirations to play for European clubs and championships? – For sure, they want it. That is why we come to different tournaments, as this one, in order to show our players. We thank the organizers for this providing us with such opportunity. – Are the players, who collided with their heads, all right now? – Yes, everything is all right. Our player feels good.   Head coach of the team Slovakia Milan Malatinsky: – We enjoyed very much playing against Iran. It's a good team, they have very good players and it was difficult to play one to one against them. We had to provide constant support to each other. But we managed to score and we are happy to win against such a strong team. We were not allowed to play as we used to, so it was quite hard for us. The Iranians are very quick and good at controlling the ball. So we decided to concentrate on defense trying to close them down while making quick counterattacks. – After quite an early goal you turned to defensive strategy and passed the initiative to the opponent. Was it your tactics or it was the Iranians who made you play in defense? You paid for it with the missed goal. – We just had no opportunity to play open football. The Iranians are very quick, they were pressing us in all the zones, so our players sometimes didn't have time to take the right decision. We didn't pass the initiative, we just couldn't oppose. But when we were able to run forward we created dangerous moments one of them was finished with the penalty kick. – By the way, your player executed the penalty kick in a risky style. Was it his own decision? – He made a penalty kick in Panenka style, thus paying tribute to the Czechoslovak player. But this was his decision. I'm glad he has scored. – In the end of the match when your players ran in counterattack three to one you asked one of the forwards to play by himself. But if he made a pass they would have come out two to one and make score 3:1, so the ending of the game would be less nervous. Why did you decide he had to strike himself? – As you've fairly mentioned the ending was quite nervous and I wanted him to hold the ball and run out the clock a bit. I wanted him to do something. That's why I shouted "By yourself!" Though now I understand that I had to give another advice. But that's what has happened. The nerves were strained to the full, we were eager to win, so in retrospect I did not give him the correct command. As for the moment of collision, I haven't come to the change room yet, but hope it is not injury and our player will be able to play next match.