Iranian U-23 Omid Team commenced its long road to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics football competition with a victory against Turkmenistan at Azadi Stadium on Friday.
Iran won 3-1 with goals scored by an own goal, Omid Noorafkan and Reza Jabierah
Although Omid won with a two goal margin, it was far from an easy game and the result was too flattering for the host with Turkmenistan , a persistent and strong team giving the host a run for their money. All the goals of the match were scored from set pieces.
At the Azadi Stadium, about 1,000 fans watched this game with the majority obviously opting to spend the Nowrooz holidays away from football.
Iran Omid Team, already aware of the result of the earlier game between Iraq and Yemen, with the former comprehensively winning 5-0, seems to be in urgency to open the scoring early. However, poor organization & finishing, smart defending by Turkmenistan and generally uncertain game plan, they could not reach the opponent’s goalkeeper except for a few times. While the Iranian players failed to score, it was a friendly fire which did the job for them. In the 35th minute a ball cleared from the goal line hit a Turkmen defender and it deflected back into his own goal, 1-0 to Iran.
This was result by the end of a scruffy first half in which the Omid team was far from impressive or organized.
In the second half, Iran appeared to be more calculated and calmer perhaps as the result of the pip talk by the coach. There were no more ideas of an easy win against a stubborn and physically stronger Turkmen team.
However, against the run of play , Iran was awarded a free kick in a perfect area just behind the box in the 53rd minute. The resulting free kick was beautifully dispatched by Captain Omid Noorafkan, whose shot penetrated the defensive wall and hit the far left corner of the goalkeeper
While Iran was happy to play out the game with a 2 goal lead, Turkmenistan hit out.
In the 74th minute, Turkmenistan got a corner kick, which was met by the towering Giordonov who headed the ball beautifully to the left of Meraj Esmaeili in Iran’s goal reducing the margin to a minimum. Suddenly, it was game on and Iranians started panicking.
In the remaining 15 minutes, Omid team played a defensive game thus inviting more pressure from the opponents, who were the more likely team to score the equalizer.
Iranian players were more concerned with maintaining the result than attacking and despite venturing forward on limited occasions, one such attacks ended up with a free kick
It was late in the game when lady luck saved Iran. The Turkmen goalkeeper failed to hold a ball from the resultant free kick and the ball dropped in front of the Reza Jebeirah who headed from close range to score Iran’s third and seal the game.
While the result of the match was quite satisfactory for Omid Team , the performance was far from it. This team looks incoherent at best and has no natural leader in the field. Perhaps the relatively young age of the majority is one factor. There is distinct lack of maturity in their football with silly and uncalled for showboating such as scissor kicks in impossible situations, back heel passes that did not work or excessive dribbling by Ghaedi who looks like typical back-alley footballer.
One noticeable observation on the Iran bench was the number of people sending instruction to players. At one stage, it looked like Hamid Estili was the head coach with his touchline instructions, then it was the turn of Reza Sharoudi and even Chalangar, who is Kranjcar’s interpreter got on the act !!!
The team is definitely a work in progress which needs a lot of improvement. On Sunday, there will be an easy game against Yemen which they expect to win, but the last match against Iraq is far from easy
Iran U-23 Line up:
Meraj Ismaili; Alireza Arta, Mohammad Aghajanpour, Sina Zadmehran, Mohammad Moslempour, Mehdi Mahdikhani, Omid Noorafkan, Vahid Namdari (78 AbolFazl Razaghpour), Mehdi Ghaedi, Amir Roustaei (63 Reza Jabierah) and Mohammad Reza Azadi