Tag: Zlatco Kranjcar

Asian Games squad announced

On the eve of the farewell ceremony of Iran’s Asian Games teams , Zlatko Kranjcar, spoke about the team preparations and recent developments.

The Asian Games ceremony was held on Tuesday at the Olympic Hotel in Tehran. Kranjcar  remarked that holding such a ceremony is good for all the disciplines. These rituals are motivating.

“Using the youth and the motive that is there, we can do our best to be successful,” he said. “Of course, we want to make these great game experiences because our primary goal is the Tokyo Olympic Games.

The head coach of the football team said: “The situation is very good. We chose 20 players to make sure these high-spirited players go to China, and we’ll go to Indonesia after a match against China to prepare for the tournament.

“All the league clubs cooperated with us, except for Nasiji who refused to release their player,” he said, noting that some teams did not give their players a chance. The resolution that the Board of Governors welcomed was welcomed by all the clubs and caused us no problems.

In the answer to the question from the reporter on the absence of Reza Shakari and Omid Noroufokan in the Omid list, Krancjar said that the lack of two quality players will certainly be a loss to the team, but the players we have chosen have a very high quality and I hope we will be able to compete with the players who have high motivation We shall achieve good results.”

“We had two very good preparations matches against the Iraqi team, which included some senior players,” he told AFP. We played very well in the second game and we are now ready to play Asian games.

The Croat coach, Zlatco  Kranjcar has earlier named 20 players who will be representing Iran in the Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta starting this August. Iran Olympics Football team is actually a mix but mostly consists of  U19 players.  The regulation restricts the age of players to be under 23 with 2 senior players can be included.

Iran Asian Games Squad

  1. Ahmad Reza Ahmadvand
  2. Alireza Orta
  3. Amir ROUSTAEI
  4. Aref AGHASI
  5. Mehdi Amini
  6. Mehdi GHAYEDI
  7. Mehdi Rahimi
  8. Mohamad AGHAJANPOUR
  9. Mohammad Amin Asadi
  10. Mohammad Khodabandeh
  11. Mohammad Mehdi MEHDIKHANI
  12. Mohammad Moslempour
  13. Mohammad Reza Azadi
  14. Mohammad SOLTANIMEHR
  15. Reza Jabireh
  16. Seyyed Abolfazl RAZZAGHPOUR
  17. Shahab ADELI
  18. Shahin Abbasian
  19. Sina Zamehran
  20. YOUNES DELFI

Hossein Faraki appointed as Sepahan coach

After the abrupt resignation of the Croat coach  Zlatko Kranjcar from Sepahan , Hossein Faraki was signed as the head coach of the Esfahani club.

Faraki will start his job with immediate effect this weekend when his stuttering team faces the only unbeaten team in the league , Padideh.

Farki was the prime candidate for coaching Team Melli after the World Cup when Kaffashian suddenly did a U-turn and decided that Queiroz shall remain in charge.   At this time , Team Melli is still coach less while Kaffashian keeps telling everyone that Queiroz is the coach but has not signed yet!

Meanwhile , all the teams of the Iran Group C in AFC Asian Cup 2015 ,  have played at least two friendly matches or more in their preparation for the premiere competition. Today Bahrain beat Kuwait 1-0 , while Qatar lost 0-2 to Peru.

 

Queiroz excludes Sepahan players from Team Melli !

Sepahan players Out !

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[column size=”1/2″] In an exclusive news carried by ISNA , Carlos Queiroz has decided to exclude all of the 6 Sepahan players from Team Melli camp in South Africa. It is not clear if the 6 players will be recalled for the next training camp in Austria, but if Queiroz stands by his decision and does not recall the players again for the World Cup , it will be crises in the making especially in the goalkeeping department where Rahman Ahmadi (34 years)  is currently the most experienced of the goal keepers in Iran by far and arguably the best.

Joining the squad will be two goalkeepers, Alireza Biranvand , the  22 years old Naft Tehran keeper who represented Team Melli at youth level but never at senior level and Hamed Lak  , 24 years old of Tractorsazi keeper who has just 1 cap against Yemen in WAFF tournament two years ago.

Rahman AHMADI , Omid EBRAHIMI, Ehsan HAJSAFY, Yaghoub KARIMI, and Shojaa KHALILZADEH are the 6 players who were named in the original Team Melli squad. These players were retained by their club because of  Sepahan’s commitment in the AFC Champions League. Esteghlal also held their 4 players from joining Team Melli squad , based on the same justification as Sepahan but Queiroz has spared theses players from his wrath and gave them a few days of rest before calling them to join the rest of the squad in Johannesburg.

Tractorsazi and Foolad Khuzestan positively responded to TEam Melli plans and sent their players to the airport but Queiroz asked them to return back to their clubs to play in the AFC Champions league matchday 5!

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[column size=”1/2″] It is believed that Queiroz had a meeting with his staff and came up with this decision. Sepahan has still to play one more match next week which is a decider. A win is crucial for them to qualify for the next round of the AFC Champions League while any other result will spell the end of their participation in this competition. Sepahan has not qualified for the next season edition of the AFC Champions league due to their failure to grab one of the 4 possible places for Iran.

In the absence of any official sources regarding this decision , it is very much hoped that Queiroz decision is temporary and sanity will prevail when the dust settles down. The dispute between Queiroz and the club coaches has been brewing for month because of the ill timing of Team Melli training camp arranged while 4 clubs are still involved with AFC Champions League. The clubs all insisted that they will stick to FIFA regulation and will not play in the Champions League without their best players.   This decision did not please Queiroz nor some FFIRI administrators who have threatened all sort of punishments for the clubs, without referring to the rules and regulations governing such players releases.

The most vocal opponent of Queiroz plans was none other than Zlatco Kranjcar, Sepahan’s Croat coach ,  who accused Queiroz shortsightedness in arranging his schedule. Kranjcar has repeatedly said from the onset of this issue arising that there is no way that he will release his players for Team Melli while the club is involved in an official competition and Sepahan will strictly apply FIFA rulings.. [/column]
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