Tag: Omid Team

Omid Team knocked out at the first stage of AFC U23 Cup

Iran's U23 team (Omid) was knocked out of the AFC U23 Asian Cup after the draw a 1-1 against host Uzbekistan in Qarashi yesterday. Winless Iran ranked third after two draws and a defeat. The host Uzbekistan and first-time participants Turkmenistan qualified for the next round. Mahdavikia, was facing the impossible task facing the Uzbek team, miracles however are a rare commodity in football.  Uzbekistan scored first from yet another Amataurish defending by Iran, while late in the second half, the Omid team found an equalizer but too late to save the day.
Mehdi Mahdavikia was left to reflect on their early exit in the campaign, admitting that the 2-1 defeat against debutants Turkmenistan hurt their chances.
“We are out of the tournament because we lost against Turkmenistan. That’s a fact,” said Mehdi. “But today was a good game. If we had taken our chances, we could have won the match but now we look back and see how we can improve.
“There are two problems that we need to overcome. First, we need to score and our players need to improve their fitness. Many of them do not play in the professional league so this is one problem we must solve before the next competition.”
The fact remains that Omid Team was ill-prepared for a tournament like that. The culprit is quite obvious to every fan by now and hope of any progress is simply futile in short term. FFIRI personnel, are too busy and too involved in their political in-fighting and lobbying to give the national teams any serious consideration. With the FFIRI without a head, as was ousted the acting Head and the rest were simply not good enough to shoulder this important responsibility. Team Melli is another victim of this politics. However, there were surprise noises talking about sacking Mahdavikia because of the Omid Team Failure. Although there is no doubt that Mahdavikia shoulders major responsibility for the defeat and no justification such as preparing the team for the Olympics has any value, the former Hamburg player is about the best bet for the job. There is no other domestic coach who can stand up to be counted. Most repetitive names, like Hamid Estili, Peyrovani, Khakpour, etc came and gone without achieving anything for Omid Team. They all failed and some miserably so. The difference with Mahdavikia is that he took the proper process in his coaching career. He is certified, coaching youth-level teams in Hamburg, played most of his career in Germany and has learned a lot from an anation that has the greatest football system in the world. Of course, any coach needs the tools and the support to succeed, Mahdavikia had very little of both. Young Iranian domestic league players are victims of a poor standard league, lack of development programs, priorities to win at all costs, short-term success demanded by clubs, sub0standard coaching, and lack of professional guidance. It is surprising how some Omid Team players through this edition of the AFC U23 Asian Cup lacked simple and basic skills. While Iran's chances of making the Paris Olympic Games is a long shot, given some proper support, Mahdavikia will at least stand a good chance to develop a few good players to feed Team Melli in the future.  

Group A

P W D L F A GD PTS
1
UZBEKISTAN
 3 2 1 0 8 1 7 7
2
TURKMENISTAN
 3 1 1 1 4 4 0 4
3
IRAN
 3 0 2 1 3 4 -1 2
4
QATAR
 3 0 2 1 3 9 -6 2

Prospects of Omid Team in AFC U23 Asian Cup 2022

Mehdi Mahdavikia embarks on a difficult journey to qualify the Omid (U23) team for the next Olympics in Paris. Iran’s football has failed to qualify for the Olympics for 42 years. The last time Iran qualified was two years after the revolution in 1980, but even then the Team was no show due to the ill-advised boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games.

The players Mahdavikia selected are those who can be available to make it to Paris except for a few whose age will limit them.

Unlike most of the new Iranian coaches, Mahdavikia took the right path in qualifying as a coach. He has attended several courses and had his on job training experience at Hamburg SV as a coach of age group teams. His experience is valuable for Team Melli teams, but there will always be a disconnect between him and his players because of the different football cultures the domestic player have been playing under.

The Difficulties.

The Omid team players are mostly a product of Iran’s domestic league. The majority of them play for the middle of the table or lower clubs. Iran’s domestic league at best is a poor league and of a lower standard than the more advanced Asian teams such as Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Qatar.  This standard of the league reflects directly on the team, so Mahdavikia has the challenging task of upgrading the capabilities of the players by teaching them skills and modern techniques they have not been exposed to before.  A better standard of coaching in Iran would have helped, unfortunately, in Iran, the coaches are even poorer than the league itself. Most of them retire as players and turn up the next day as coaches of the youth teams, the worst possible scenario in football.

The mental toughness and emotional condition of Iranian players have always lagged the others. Such weakness leads to defeats that would have been avoided, however, Mahdavikia has limited options to make his players unlearn years of poor training and mental preparation in a matter of days. If he can even partially overcome this perpetual problem then Omid Team stands a chance to make it to the semifinals at least. Basic behavior such as goal celebration is eccentric and at times embarrassing and petulant. The team needs a certain level of maturity and learning to behave under all conditions.

Discipline is another issue that hindered Iranian players at all levels. In fact, football is not immune from society, so indiscipline is quite rife. If there is no firm disciplinary measure, the problem will even intensify, and the results can be catastrophic like not even making it from the group level. That is a tough job for the Head Coach who is never been known to be a tough guy. It remains to be seen if his European career experience will have an effect on the squad and help sort out the young players.

The Positives.

A winning mentality is engraved in Iranian culture. You can count on every Iranian team to fight to the end and not give up. This is quite important especially when the team is behind.

The physique of Omid players is at a decent level, they seem to be strong and solid. A physically weak team is at a disadvantage from the word go and even more, skillful teams can suffer if the opposition is physically stronger and wins tackles around the pitch.

It is safe to say that Omid Team and Mahdavikia have no star players on the team. However, in captain Yasin Salmani, the team has a strong leader and quite a skillful player who has already scored spectacular goals in the domestic league. The absence of Allahyar Sayyadmanesh and Mehdi Ghaedi will be felt, but since they are both playing outside Iran, their availability was an issue.

Prediction

Anything above qualifying from this group is progress for Iran’s Omid team in this tournament. There are already two tough teams in Uzbekistan and Qatar so their qualification from the group is not assured.

With so many good teams in this edition, it is not very easy for Iran to make the final. A semi-final is the best the fans can hope for, but like they always say, football is unpredictable.

Iran's Omid Team defeats Iraq in a friendly

Iran's Omid national football team defeated its Iraqi counterpart by one goal at the Medina Stadium in Baghdad tonight at 9 pm. The U23 Team or the national football team of Omid is currently in Iraq for a training camp that includes two friendly matches. Under Mehdi Mahdavikia, the players are preparing for the upcoming AFC U23 Asian Cups. The only goal of the game came in the first half in the 12th minute by Aria Yousefi, a Sepahani player recently invited to the Omid national team. Omid Iran line up was as follows:  Parsa Jafari, Amir Jafari, Milad Kerr, Saman Fallah (Mohammad Ghorbani), Alireza Khodaei, Mohammad Khodabandeh Lou, Yasin Salmani (captain), Mohammad Hossein Zaveri (Ali Pilaram), Amir Ali Sadeghi, Ahmad Shariatzadeh (Mohammad Javad) Kalmarzi), Arya Yousefi.

Omid Team Squad announced

The FFIRI website announced that Mehdi MahdaviKia, the head coach of the Omid team, announced the final names of the U23 squad to participate in the Iraq training camp and the U-23 championship in Uzbekistan. After replacing Reza Kakhsaz and Parsa Jafari. The two goalkeepers of Peykan and Zobahan instead of Sina Saeedifar and Alireza Rezaei, the goalkeepers of Esteghlal, announced the following: Amir Ali Sadeghi (Esteghlal) Yasin Salmani, Arya Yousefi (Sepahan) Alireza Bavieh, Mohammad Amin Hezbavi (Foolad Khuzestan) Reza Kakhsaz , Erfan Shahriari Khalaji, Saman Fallah Vernami (Peykan) Parsa Jafari, Milad Kerr, Mohammad Hossein Eslami, Mohammad Khodabandeh Lou (Zobahan) Payam Parsa, Ahmad Shariatzadeh, Mohammad Hossein Zavari (Naft Abadan) Mohammad Ghorbani (Nasiji Mazandaran) Mohammad Mehdi Ahmadi, Mehdi Hashemnejad (Naft Masjed Soleyman) Amir Jafari Siglani (Shahr Khodro) Ali Javad Kalmarzi Sabet (Roda JC Netherlands) Yadegar Rostami (playing in the Polish league) Bilal Arazi, Ali Pilaram (South Pars) Alireza Khodaei (Saipa)

Mahdavikia leads Iran in a difficult Asian U23 group

Tashkent: Korea Republic will open their defense of the AFC U23 Asian Cup title in Group C following the conclusion of the Uzbekistan 2022 Finals draw in Tashkent on Thursday.
Joining the Korea Republic, which defeated Saudi Arabia 1-0 in 2020 final, will be the ASEAN trio of Thailand, 2018 runners-up Vietnam and Malaysia.
Hosts Uzbekistan, the 2018 champions, will have Iran, Qatar, and newcomers Turkmenistan to contend with in Group A.
Australia, third in the 2020 edition, was drawn in Group B with Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait while Japan, the 2016 champions, are in Group D with 2020 runners-up Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and debutants Tajikistan.

AFC U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 - Official Draw

The fifth edition of the Championship will be played in Central Asia for the first time, with Uzbekistan hosting 32 matches across the cities of Tashkent and Karshi.
Four former champions and nine teams to have reached the semi-finals or better within the last decade alongside two debutants will battle for Continental supremacy from June 1 to 19.
Iran's Omid team will be led by former star Mehdi Mahdavikia. Although at this level of football, there are no weak teams, Iran's Omid is in one of the more difficult groups, especially in the presence of the host and the strong Qatari team. Mhadavikia is handling the difficult task of leading Iran for the Olympics with this team, which has eluded Iran for more than four decades.
Group A Uzbekistan (UZB) - Iran (IRN)- Qatar (QAT) -Turkmenistan (TKM)
Date Time Teams Venue
Wednesday, 1st June 2022 18:00  Iran v. Qatar    Bunyodkor Stadium, Tashkent
20:00  Uzbekistan v. Turkmenistan Pakhtakor Stadium, Tashkent
Saturday 4th June 2022  18:00  Turkmenistan v.  Iran    Bunyodkor Stadium, Tashkent
20:00   Qatar v. Uzbekistan  Pakhtakor Stadium, Tashkent
Tuesday 7th June 2022 22:00  Qatar v. Turkmenistan    Bunyodkor Stadium, Tashkent
22:00  Uzbekistan v. Iran    Markaziy Stadium, Qarshi

The never ending lies and decption of the officials!

While the Omid Team is in turmoil and the scheduled team training in FIFA Day was not held due to the pending administrative and contractual issues ( non-payment of coaches salaries and not finalizing and signing of the contracts) which lead to the cancellation of the Omid Training Camp, the president of the football federation FFIRI and the president of the National Olympic Committee denied all those facts and turned them upside down claiming that Omid Team is progressing well

The camp of the national Olympic football team (Omid) was supposed to be held under the supervision of Mehdi Mahdavikia from the 25th January to the 1st February, but this camp was never commenced due to lack of necessary planning by the Football Federation and non-conclusion of the national team coaches contracts including Mehdi Mahdavikia himself and his assistants!

However, Shahabuddin Azizi Khadem, president of the Football Federation FFIRI, and Seyed Reza Salehi Amiri, president of the National Olympic Committee NOC, as the team's trustees, denied any wrongdoing, saying that the National Olympic team had no problems whatsoever!!. "The Omid team is doing its job according to plan. We participated in the Central Asian Games and will go to Uzbekistan. This federation is different from the ones before in that it has already started the preparation of Omid team for the Paris Olympics, which we have already done," Azizi Khadem said. "It was not like that before. I hope the Omid national team gets better conditions. We have to go to Uzbekistan for the final of the Asian Championship in June. We hope Mahdavikia will start working soon again according to the plans."

          • Mahdavikia pays his assistants wages from his own pocket.
          • The one-week training camp in Kish Isle was canceled 
          • Director of communication of Omid Team resigns.
          • Azizi-Khadem in full denial

A day before this statement, Salehi Amiri had said: "I am in contact with Azizi Khadem. Mahdavikia is also seriously pursuing and organizing, and I personally believe that the Omid team, given its capacity in the football community and its presence. The well-respected coach that this team has, we will shine in Hangzhou."

A few hours later after Sazlehi-Amiri's statement and assurance, that the media director of the Omid national team submitted his resignation,

Pointing to many problems in the national Olympic (Omid) team in a text he posted on his personal Instagram page, the director said  "the contracts of the head coach and assistant coaches of the Omid national team have not been signed even after about five months from initial agreement on the contents. This is what was supposed to happen after the recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Football Federation, but has not been done yet, and this is only one of the aggravations and problems of the technical staff of the Iranian U-23 national team.

"The non-payment of players' bonuses, the cancellation of the national team camps (which was supposed to be held on Kish Island with matches against foreign teams) as well as the uncertainty of the team's manager and coaches are among the events that led to the cancellation of the team's recent camp. On hearing the cancellation of the camp, the foreign coaches did not travel to Iran!"

The media director wrote in his message that "Mahdavikia paid the salaries of his three foreign assistants out of his own pocket so that the non-commitment and lack of obligation in the football federation would not take on an international dimension!"

"Mahdavi's Assistants had participated in the Asian Under-23 qualifiers from September to November 2021 without any contract. In this turbulent situation that is not hidden from anyone,"

Azizi Khadem and Salehi Amiri, with their lack of honesty, sweet talk their way on how their respective organizations are determined to succeed in the Asian U23 Championship and the Asian Games with such confidence to the degree of promising the fans to finally end the spell of consecutive failures of over 40 years of Omid Team failure to qualify for the Olympics. It looks like they both believe that by turning the facts upside down and living in denial, no one notices the shortcomings and broken promises, disrespect for the contracts. While it seems like a standard operating procedure for preparing the Omid or the Iranian Olympics team, and after about half a century, professional planning, commitment, financial support needed for the success of this team is still lacking big time. Instead, lies, denials, deception, and delusion is still rife from those inept personnel running football and other sports affair in Iran.

Like the Persian proverb goes "It's the same soup and the same bowl"!

Mahdavikia resigns from FFIRI Technical Committee

A report on an Iranian sports website has claimed that Mehdi Mahdavikia, the former Team Melli player and the current Head Coach of Omid Team, has resigned his post as a member of the federation's Technical Committee.

"Tarafdari " claims that not only Mahdavikia is not willing to be a part of the committee he has shown reluctance in continuing his work with Omid Team (U23) too.

This site writes that FIFA  has sent an invitation to MahdaviKia as the representative of Iran to attend the online meeting of the technical directors of the football federations of the member states, however, in response to this invitation, Mahdavikia said that he is no longer the technical director of FFIRI.

After Mahdavikia's response to FIFA that he is no longer representing Iran, the world governing football body sends a letter to the Football Federation of Iran FFIRI inquiring about this and asking the Football Federation to introduce a replacement for MahdaviKia to attend the FIFA online meeting.

The expectation is that there are currently two candidates who can represent the FFIRI in this virtual meeting. Mirshad Majedi, the chairman of the Youth Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of the Football Federation, and Bijan Zolfagharansab, who has recently become the chairman of the "Technical and Development Committee" of the Football Federation. The latter's post is more appropriate for the subject of the meeting.

Earlier, ZolfagharNasab had also announced that he had not been notified of the decision to select him for this post and that it was only speculation.

While Mahadvikia quitting his post is indicative of internal disagreements in the "Technical and Development Committee" or a dispute between Mahdavikia and the FFIRI management, the role of the Technical Committee has been marginalized and damaged during the Queiroz era. It is effectively toothless with no power or authority to do anything of worth to develop football at any level in Iran.

The fact that Mahadvikia agreed to join, was surprising knowing that the committee is no more than a formality and suffers a distinct lack of transparency.

There was no confirmation on the FFIRI website confirming or denying this information.

Omid Team to start a training camp alongside Team Melli.

The Omid National Team Camp begins at the same time as the Team Melli at the National Team Camp. According to ISNA, with the plans made by the technical staff and the announcement of Mohammad Mohammadi, the head of the Omid national football team, the camp of this team will start on the 24th or 25th of January, and players under the age of 23 will be called to the national team camp after three months. . The Omid national team camp will be held at the same time as the senior national team camp - which is preparing to meet Iraq and the UAE in the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers - and MahdaviKia's boys will hold several training sessions and two preparatory matches for a week.

According to the plan, two Premier League teams will be the opponents of the Omid national team, to help the U23/Olympic team prepare better. Mehdi Mahdavikia and his assistants will arrive in Tehran in around the 21st of January. Previously, the work visas of three foreign assistants of Mahdavikia have been issued b

In the period between the departure of Mahdavikia and his assistants from Iran, the games played in the Premier League have been regularly reviewed and analyzed. One of Mahdavikia's assistants has been assigned to evaluate new and potential candidates for the Omid team in Iran's first and second division leagues for a long time so that new faces can be added to the Omid national team in the upcoming camp. Over the next five months, Mahdavikia seeks to identify new members and bolster his team's strengths and ensure the weaknesses are mitigated in order to participate in the AFC Under-23 Championship, which will be held in Uzbekistan in mid-June.

Sensational Salmani sends Iran's Omid Team to Finals

the-afc.com

Iran qualified as group winners, while Tajikistan face a nervous wait to learn their fate after Group B of the AFC U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 qualifiers concluded on Sunday.
Team Melli Omid ran out 3-2 winners in the final, group-deciding clash against Tajikistan to book their place, leaving the group hosts as potential qualifiers as one of the best placed runners-up, while Lebanon defeated Nepal 4-0 in the earlier match.
IRAN 3-2 TAJIKISTAN A sensational hat-trick from captain Yasin Salmani took Mehdi Mahdvikia’s side all the way to Uzbekistan 2022 after a thrilling Group B final ended in 3-2 Islamic Republic of Iran’s favor.
The Sepahan youngster bagged all three goals in a dizzying first half, where the teams traded five goals in the space of 35 minutes in front of a vibrant Central Republican Stadium crowd.Iran’s win sends them back to the continental Finals, but Tajikistan will have to wait to see if they will join them as one of the four best placed runners-up after they missed their chance to win the group on the night.
Mubin Ergashev’s side got off to a flying start, and the Dushanbe crowd erupted when Islom Zairov fired home a terrific volley in the 10th minute, but they were silenced when Salmani beat goalkeeper Shohrulh Qirghizboev with a low free-kick just three minutes later.
Salmani gave Iran the lead when he benefited from an error by Naimdzhon Ibrogimzoda in the 19th minute, but Tajikistan were level once again when Ehson Panshanbe converted a penalty to make it 2-2 after 22 thrilling minutes. Iran’s captain continued his one-man mission when he scored a superb header to make it 3-2 in the final minute of the first half, meaning Tajikistan – who needed only a draw to seal their place at the finals – played catch-up after the break.
Yasin Salmani, the captain of Omid team, was the star of the show with his hat-trick in the 13th, 19th, and 44th minutes, becoming one of the top scorers in the group stage. Henanov also scored for Tajikistan in the 10th and 22nd minutes (penalty) on Thursday.
In this match, Aria Barzegar was sent off in the 86th minute after receiving a direct red card, and Mahdavikia's players played with one player short for about 10 minutes.
Omid team lineup was : Reza Kakhsaz, Younes Akbarpour, Milad Kerr, Saman Fallah, Mehdi Hasheminejad, Mohammad Khodabandeh Lou, Yasin Salmani (captain), Hossein Nokhodkar, Mehdi Lamouchi, Amir Ali Sadeghi and Sobhan Khaghani.
In the group standings, Iran with 9 points, Tajikistan with 6 points, Lebanon with 3 points and Nepal without points are in the first to fourth places. Thus, the Iranian national U23 team qualifies to the finals of AFC U23 Championship, and Tajikistan, as the second team in the group, has to wait for the end of the games in the other 10 groups of this stage. The top 11 teams, the four best second placed teams as well as Uzbekistan (host) are qualified for the Final tournament in June 2022.
In their previous games, the Omid team had defeated Nepal by 4 goals and Lebanon by 2 goals
They had their chances to equalize in a second half that was no less entertaining despite the relative paucity of goalmouth action. Panshanbe narrowly missed with a free-kick, while Rustam Soirov saw an effort cleared off the goal-line just prior to a flurry of near-misses for the hosts, but Iran held on to secure a crucial victory in one of the most entertaining games seen anywhere across Asia this week.

Omid team defeats Lebanon in AFC U23 qualifiers.

Dushanbe: Iran and group host Tajikistan set up a winner-takes-all Group B finale in AFC U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 qualifying after both sides secured wins on Thursday.
the-afc.com
Iran earned a 2-0 win over Lebanon in the early match at Dushanbe’s Central Republican Stadium, before Tajikistan piled on the goals to beat Nepal 6-0 in the later game.
Lebanon 0-2 IR Iran Keen to build on their strong finish In Monday’s 4-0 win over Nepal. Iran took just five minutes to go ahead through Mehdi Lamouchi, who latched onto skipper Yasin Salmani’s pass before beating Lebanese goalkeeper Antoine Al Douaihy from close range. Iran suffered a blow when Mohammad Khodabandehlo was sent off after being shown a second yellow card in the 36th minute, but Lebanon failed to capitalize on their numerical advantage.
Mahdavikia’s side missed the chance to extend their lead when Saman Fallahvarnami’s Panenka-style penalty kick was kept out by the woodwork in the 90th minute, but the second goal did arrive in the fourth minute of injury time, with Milad Kor rising high to head home the sealer. Team Melli Omid now faces what looms as a crucial clash with Tajikistan, while Lebanon will be playing for pride in their final outing against Nepal.