Tag: Omid Team

Iran U23 4-0 Afghanistan U23

Iran's Omid team clinched a second victory in the AFC Asian Cup U23 qualifiers with a 4-0 defeat of Afghanistan in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Iran is temporarily at the top of the group, but the host Uzbekistan. playing Hong Kong at the time of writing this report, will most probably clinch the top spot with a win as their goal difference is superior to Iran's.

It took a long time before Omid Team opened the scoring against the stubborn Afghan team which was defeated 8-1 in their last match. In the 29th minute, Mohammad Ghorbani scored Iran's first goal with a header. In the 38th minute, Hosseinnejad's cross and Hossein Goudarzi's header registered the second goal of the match with a powerful header. The first half ended 1-1.

In the 59th minute, Iran's third goal was scored with a header again, by Allahyar Sayadmanesh. In the 74th minute, Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad's shot from behind the penalty area and beautifully placed the ball in the far corner of Afghanistan's goal to make it 4-0. It was the goal of the match.

Despite the easy win, Omid team looked far from comfortable as there were lots of chaotic moves, miscoordination, erroneous passes, and some selfish play, notably from the Captain of the team. Allahyar Sayyadmanesh.

Facing Uzbekistan in its third match will be far from easy. A defeat might very well knock the Omid team out of the competition and with it the hope of qualifying for the Olympics for the first time in 44 years. Only a win can ensure the U23 qualify for the finals in Qatar next year and a chance for the Olympics. A draw might also be good enough depending on the results of the other groups.

Enayati, needs to motivate his players and do much-needed hard-talking encouraging them to refrain from the showmanship and much better teamwork.

Omid team starts the long march against Hong Kong.

Iran's Omid Team (U23) and also the Olympic team is embarking on a long journey for qualification to the Olympics Games Paris 2024 with a game against Hong Kong.

This match is in the qualification rounds for AFC U23 Championship in which the top 4 teams qualifies for the Olympics. Host Uzbekistan will be the most serious opponent of this group that includes Afghanistan as well.

Under a relatively inexperienced coach, Reza Enayat's Omid Team is hoping once again to break the long tradition of failures to qualify for the Olympics since 1980. These failures occur even with the availability of quality players under this age bracket. Many Omid teams had Team Melli players, but still failed to qualify with the team falling at different hurdles.

Reza Enyati, the former Team Melli striker, will hardly set the football world alight with his resume and experience in coaching. His short career started in 2019 with Qashqaei and then in the same season, Havadar before moving on to Naft Masjed Soleiman, all teams at the lower end of the tables or in lower tier of football in Iran.

Yet, Enayati, a demanding character, has managed some respectable results with the team so far. He will undoubtedly have a hard and testing times against better. more prepared and organized teams not to mention much experience coaches. It is remains to be seen if Enyati can stand up to the challenge by boosting his players and cover technical and tactical deficiencies by utilizing individual skills and solid defense the team is well capable of.

In toddy's match , Reza Enayati, the starting lineup against Hong Kong as follows: Mohammad Reza Khaledabadi, Saman Touranian, Hossein Goudarzi, Amin Hizbavi, Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad, Yasin Salmani, Aria Yousefi, Amir Jafari, Mohammad Ghorbani, Mehdi Hashminejad, Mohammad Reza Bardbar.

The match starts at 15:30 ,(Iran Time) at Lokomotiv Stadium in Tashkent. This meeting will be held in the first stage of the Olympic qualifiers.

Pourdara will be realaesed for Omid Team

The Omid Team forward, Ali Pourdara who is playing for Al Kuwait club and has scored a goal and provided an assist in his last league match, is said to be joining the Omid Team in Tashkent.

Al Kuwait club, which values the Iranian player highly, agreed for their forward to join the Omid team but later than usual. In essence, Pourdara will be missing the training camp and will head straight to the Uzbek capital without joining his teammates in Tehran.

Another legionnaire that has been released is Al Sadd club, central defender Amin Hizbavi who also scored a very neat header and his team's first goal against Al Arabi in a 4-2 thriller this week in the Qatar Star Legue match.

The third legionnaire, Sayyadmanish is yet to confirm his arrival.

Iran is in group E of the qualifier and will play its first match on 6 September 2023.

GROUP E
1 Uzbekistan (H)
2 Iran
3 Hong Kong
4 Afghanistan

Omid team announced

The list of Omid football team preparing for participation in the Olympic qualifiers was announced. Head coach Reza Enayati and his coaching staff selected these players for the training camp starting Thursday.

The list includes:

Sina Saidifar, Sina Ghasemi, Ali Asghar Sadeghi, Saman Turanian, Mohammad Reza Khaledabadi, Amin Hizbavi, Ali Pourdara, Allahyar Sayadmanesh, Mohammad Ghorbani, Aria Yousefi, Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad, Payam Parsa, Saman Fallah, Amir Jafari, Mohammad Reza Bardbar, Aria Barzgar, Taha Tabatabai, Mohammad Hossein Eslami, Hossein Guderzi, Alireza Bavieh, Mehdi Ahmadi, Yassin Salmani and Daniyal Iri

Team Omid's camp will start at noon Thursday at Evin Parsian Hotel in Tehran, Amongst the invitees, there will be two absentees Amin Hizbavi playing in Al Sadd in Qatar, and Allahyar Sayyadmanesh who plays in the English Championship.

It is not clear if their respective clubs will release the players for this competition. Iran failed to qualify for the Olympics since 1980 (43 years back).

WAFF U23 2023

Omid team to meet host Iraq in the final of WAFF U23 Cup.

Omid Team (Iran U23) defeated Jordan in a penalty shootout to book a place in the final match against host Iraq.

The match was a dour affair with neither of the teams impressing in a match that only saw two serious attempts at scoring. The extra time was not played as usual as after the goalless draw the match went directly to penalty Shootouts which ended 4-3 in favor of Iran.

Reza Enayati, the head coach of the Omid team said: "As of now, our celebration and joy period happiness is over and we are only thinking about the final." said in the press conference after the win against Jordan and advancing to the finals of the West Asian Under-23 Championship " Jordan is a good team and we had a tough game. I have to thank the players of the team who showed zeal and were able to achieve this result."

He continued:" Now the joy of winning in the semi-final is over and we should only think about the final. It doesn't matter to us whether the opponent is Iraq or Oman. We strive for success. In response to a question about the physical pressure on the team's players at the end of the second half, Enayati said: This was predictable because we play every other day. Of course, our players managed the game well in the second half. He added: " We went through difficult training conditions. We had to practice in Karbala from 5 to 6 o'clock, which caused a lot of physical pressure. In the matter of recovery, there was also a problem of compression of matches."

Iran Omid Team led by the brilliant Yasin Salmani, is looking to take back the trophy last won by an Iranian team 14 years ago in Amman.

Host Iraq narrowly defeated Oman 1-0 to set up the final on Tuesday in Karbala at 21:30 local time.

Omid team defeats Syria in WAFF U23 championship.

Iran's Omid football team defeated Syria 3-1 in its first match in the under-23 West Asia tournament played in Karbala Stadium (Karbala), Iraq.

Yasin Salmani (9 and 45) and Ahmad Shariatzadeh (15) scored Iran's goals. Also, Mohammad Al-Asoud (45) scored the only goal for the Syrians

The Syrians embark on a tough physical and at times violent game in the final minutes of the match. This issue caused tension between the players of the two teams as well as the bench with Omid coach Reza Enayati clashing with his Syrian counterpart. This was Enayati's first experience at the international level which he has no experience before as a coach. It was a sweet victory for the rookie coach and a firm step in the tournament. Iran Omids Team is counting on a good performance in preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 4th WAFF U23 tournament is held in Iraq and has 3 groups. It was first held in Qatar in 2015, Iran was absent.

Group A features UAE, Jordan, and Iraq

Group B features: Syria, Palestine, and Iran

Group C features: Yemen, Oman, and Lebanon

Iran's Omid team will play Palestine on Friday at 19:45 local.

Draw for AFC U23 Championship held.

Kuala Lumpur: The draw for the AFC U23 Asian Cup™ Qatar 2024 Qualifiers was finalized at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday.
The hopefuls were divided into 11 groups – 10 groups of four teams each, with the last group containing three. Qatar, meanwhile, will play in the Qualifiers for exposure with their matches classified as friendlies.
To be played from September 4 to 12 this year, Group A of the Qualifiers will have hosts Jordan, Syria, Oman, and Brunei Darussalam vying for the sole automatic ticket to the Finals.
Group B will see 2020 champions Korea Republic (H), Myanmar, Kyrgyz Republic, and Qatar contesting with Vietnam (H), Singapore, Yemen, and Guam in the Group C cast.
Japan, the 2016 champions, are the top seeds in Group D with Bahrain (H), Palestine, and Pakistan as their challengers while 2018 champions Uzbekistan (H), Iran, Hong Kong, China and Afghanistan were drawn in Group E.
Group F will see 2013 winners Iraq, Kuwait (H), Timor-Leste and Macau doing battle with United Arab Emirates, India, Maldives, and hosts China PR the Group G teams.

#AFCU23 | Moments

Hosts Thailand lead Group H with Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines also aiming for a place in the Finals while Group I will see Australia, Tajikistan (H), Laos, and DPR Korea locking horns.
Defending champions Saudi Arabia (H), Cambodia, Lebanon, and Mongolia were drawn in Group J while the three-team Group K will be a tussle between Turkmenistan, Indonesia (H), and Chinese Taipei.
The AFC U23 Asian Cup™ Qatar 2024 Finals are scheduled for April 15 to May 3, 2024.

Iran's request for hosting Olympics qualifiers turned down.

The Asian Football Confederation AFC announced on Friday that the final stage of the AFC U23 Championship which is also the 2024 Paris Olympic football qualifiers, will be hosted by Qatar. \

The decision was taken by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Competition Committee in its fifth meeting held today in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this way, Qatar, which will host the FIFA World Cup 2022 in November, will then host the Asian U23 Competition. In addition to Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan also applied to host the tournament, but these requests were rejected in favor of Qatar. Iran's Omid football team is currently non-existent. After the departure of Mehdi Mahdavikia, the situation of the head coach of this team is uncertain. With Mehdi Taj taking office in the football federation, Mahdavikia left and as yet there is no news about the team's status or its coach.

While all the other teams are in training, Iran's Omid team ( Hope team) is hopeless and technically speaking, is disbanded. The Iranian Olympic Committee has once again that this team will qualify for the Paris Olympic Games, a claim that has been regularly heard for the last 44 years.

The plight of Omid Team, a reoccurring saga.

A spell that is not going to break approaching the 44th year.

Omid's national football team is approaching the Olympics without the support of officials and clubs, and the spell of its failures will probably reach 48 years. Iran's U23 (Omid national football team) started its camp to prepare for the Islamic Solidarity Games in Turkey, and without playing its second preparatory game, the training camp was canceled and everyone was sent home. After months of planning, support, and budgeting, the result of which is that Iran is unable to send the Olympic hopeful team to the Islamic Solidarity games!

This disappointment occurred while many in the corridors of the FFIRI and the media were hopeful that Mehdi Mahdavikia will be able to qualify the Omid Team for the Olympic games in Paris after a 44 years absence. The first sign of trouble for Omid, however, was clear when they astonishingly failed to qualify from the group stage in the AFC U23 championship, and now they are unable to form a team that can compete in a much lesser competition which was supposed to be an important stage preparing or the Olympics.

Under such circumstances, what rights does Iran's U23 team has to claim a place amongst the elite in the Olympics or be among the top three teams in Asia? Certainly not with the situation that Iranian football, sports authorities and clubs have created for the team. Therefore, it is not far from expected that Iranian football will be absent from the Olympics in 2024. While Asian countries such as Saudi Arabia, which recently won the championship of AFC U23 Cup, are preparing to experience another international event, Iranian football has failed to form a preparatory camp and send it to a tournament.

When Asian football powers such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq and emerging powers in this age group including Uzbekistan, Qatar, UAE, etc. do their best planning to participate in an event like the Olympics and gain experience in these competitions, Iran's Omid national team has started its camp while the players trickled into the U23 national team in the form of drop by drop, and finally, due to the absence of seven key players of this selection, the project of competing in the Islamic solidarity games was shelved by Mahdavikia!

While the Premier League clubs have refused to release their players to the Omid team, the aforementioned games end on August 25, i.e. 5 days after the start of the Premier League.  Gaining experience by playing three good games against teams like Azerbaijan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia is the exact requirement for the Omid Team that it lacked in these months. Since Mahdavikia took office as Omid's head coach, this team has only managed one friendly game with Iraq as its preparation match, while other meetings have been against League teams! If the Iranian national team had the same facilities as countries with power and capital, everyone would definitely agree that it is unfair if such a team does not qualify for the Olympics and international events, and instead, a team that does not have any plans, facilities, and budgets, does so in the best event of this age group.

The actions of the Football Federation and the National Olympic Committee, in this case, are no different from the previous cases of Iran's Omid team failures, which are aplenty. Iran's Omid is following the path it followed in the past 44 years. Creating a bunch of excuses and justification, blaming the earth and the sky, and anything in between, until the next Olympics and the next failure.

The reality is the same and hardly changes. Iran's football lack of strong leadership is the result of decades of incompetent and corrupt managers controlling the affairs. It is whom you know and which gang you belong to that gives these people the opportunity to manage clubs and the federation rather than ability, competency, knowledge or heaven forbids, intelligence. Most of the football federation and club personnel that controls football, have no right to be anywhere near these institutions. The few good ones that remain and work faithfully and purely for the interest of the nation, do not survive the plots and the corrupt lobbies.

Omid Team withdraws from the Islamic Solidarity Games!

The team that Mehdi Mahdavikia is managing in hope of qualifying for the Paris Olympic Games 2024, has announced its withdrawal from the Islamic Solidarity Games that are supposed to be held in Turkey.

These games, were part of a long-term project to qualify the young Iranian team for the Olympic Games in Paris.

After some disappointing showings including the elimination from the AFC U23 Cup in the group rounds, the latest results have indicated that this team is far from challenging for any kind of title and has a long way to go to be taken seriously. According to Mahdavikia himself, " If these are the conditions that we have to work under, we will be lucky to make Mehrabad airport let alone Paris!" The difficulties that Mhadavikia, who has lost his foreign assistants and advisors, is referring to include but are not limited to the reluctance of the League clubs to release their players, many of whom are fixed, senior team players.

Omid Team foreign coaches left Iran after non-payment of their wages by the FFIRI or the Iranian Olympic Committee IOC, something which is quite normal in Iran. The breach of contracts between teams and coaches is affecting all levels of football in the country.

In the latest friendly match, the Omid team under Mahadavikia lost to Persepolis 4-2 with the reds playing some of the players that Mahdavikia picked for the U23 team. Kia claimed that he had only 14 to 16 players available to him and that number is quite insufficient for a team that is preparing for a major championship.

It has been quite a rough road for Mehdi Mahdavikia who reluctantly agreed to coach the Omid Team, while many others turned down this offer. The U23 or Omid Team has been a serious failing experience for the aspiring and even experienced Iranian coaches. All of them failed to achieve anything of worth for the team Melli of the future. Many of these coaches' reputations were damaged beyond repair after experiencing failures with Omid, Mahdavikia is in danger of being added to that list too.

The FFIRI has not formally announced the withdrawal from the Solidarity games yet.