Tag: Segunda Liga

Mehrdad Mohammadi signs for Portuguese club CD Aves

Mehrdad Mohammadi, the 25 years old Sepahan midfielder has reached an agreement with the Portuguese side Clube Desportivo Aves to play for 3 seasons starting from 2019/20 season.

Mohammadi, whose twin brother Milad plays for Russian side Akhmat Grozny, has been enjoying an exceptional season with Sepahan , playing 29 matches and scoring 6 goals. The team under Amir Ghalenoei challenged Persepolis for the title until all the way to the end of the Persian Gulf League, eventually ending as Runner up.

CD Aves , is a small club in Portugal established in 1930. They won promotion to the top division of the Portuguese league in 2017/18 season when they finished runners up in the Iranian forward Segunda Liga. They achieved the same in season 2005/06. The pinnacle of CD Aves achievements is winning the Cup (Taça de Portugal) last season 2017/18.  The coach of CD Aves is the veteran Portuguese coach Augusto Inácio who has coached Foolad Khuzestan in 2007/08 and before joining CD Aves he was in Egypt as head coach of Zamalek.

CD Aves is currently uncomfortably laying in the 14th position in the Primeira liga with 36 points and 2 matches to go. The club is still not safe from relegation as the team in 16th place, Chaves has one match in hand with 32 points.

Vila das Aves is an industrial town and civil parish (freguesia) in northern Portugal with a population of less than 10,000 people. It is about 350 km north of capital Lisbon and 70 km from the Spanish boarder.

Nekounam back in Osasuna after 2 years absence.

 Two years ago, Javad Nekounam left Osasuna to Esteghlal Tehran after he refused to accept a substantial pay cut mandated by the Chief Executive of the club. Osasuna , which was playing in the La Liga was struggling financially and Nekounam was one of their highest paid players. Getting rid of him seemed to be a logical financial move for the club , but far from a sound decision tactically.

Today , Javad Nekounam has returned back to his old favorite place , but the Pamplona club is no more a La liga club. Last season and after a very tough run , the club was relegated , and now it is in the second division.

The Bosses of Osasuna introduced Nekounam to about 500 cheering Osasuna fans in Pamplona. Javad immediately got to work and started his first training session preparing for the imminent start of the Segunda Liga of Spain.

Before his departure from Iran, after returning from World Cup duty, Javad Nekounam created a major controversy when he embarked on a verbal war and spoke highly critically about Amir Ghalenoei , his coach in Esteghlal with his alleged faults. Nekounam did not chew his words either accusing the coach , who was also the coach of Team Melli when Nekounam was a member of the team in Asian Cup 2007 , of being ignorant about football coaching.

For the record, Amir Ghalenoei is the highest decorated Iranian coach in league history winning 4 titles with Esteghlal and Sepahan. His record with Team Melli is also one of the best officially losing one friendly match only. Not a bad achievement for a coach who ignorant about football coaching according to Nekounam.

The accusations against Ghalenoei made public by Nekounam , promoted Esteghlal club and Ghalenoei himself to seek justice and file a slander case against the Captain of Team Melli in the courts.

Meanwhile, it seems that the talks between a Greek club and Masoud Shojaei has broken down. Shojaei is a free player since he was released by Las Palmas at the end of last season and still seeking a club in Europe. It very much looks like the East for Shojaei, either back home to Iran or one of the Persian Gulf countries’ leagues.