Iran Ready for AFC Asian Cup

The Iranian National Football Team has arrived at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to compete in the Asian Football Confederation’s 2019 Asian Cup competitions, which start on January 5 and will last until February 1. 

Head coach Carlos Queiroz and his team of 23 footballers arrived in the UAE after a 14-day camp in Qatar that, by all indications, appear to have been one of the best training sessions in the history of the national team.

The team practiced at Qatar’s well-equipped Aspire Academy for Sports, played two friendly games and stayed at a hotel that last year was host to AC Milan and FC Bayern Munich football teams. They flew in charter flights from Tehran to the Qatari capital of Doha, from Doha to the Iranian island of Kish in the Persian Gulf and from there to Abu Dhabi. The camp was equipped with almost everything that the national team’s technical staff had requested.

Iran will play its first game of the competition against Yemen on Monday, January 7. In its last friendly game against Syria, Yemen lost 0-1 and it is safe to assume that it will be one of the first teams to be eliminated from 17th Asian Cup competitions.

 

Queiroz: Don’t Let the Crocodiles In

Queiroz last spoke with Iranian journalists at Qatar airport before taking off for Kish. “I am very happy and satisfied with the performance of the players, their fighting spirit, their high [levels of] concentration and the commitment of the team that we witnessed in these past days,” he said. The coach, whose statements after the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia sparked mayhem among the Iranian football community, is now asking everyone to support his team.

Nevertheless, Queiroz did not miss an opportunity to take a jab at his critics. “Mr. [Mehdi] Taj, President of the Football Federation,” Queiroz said, “should learn his lessons from the past and realize who the friends of the national team are. They are those who really support the national team. Now is not the time to let the crocodiles approach. Considering Mr. Taj’s power, he must not allow this to happen.”

When reporters told Queiroz the Iranian people expected this team and its technical staff to win the championship at the games in the UAE, he replied: “You do not have to remind me of that, but in the past 40 years Iran has not succeeded to achieve the championship of the Asian Cup. Perhaps Iran has had the worst results in the past 15 years. At the club level, too, Iran has had problems.”

But in making these statements, Carlos Queiroz has overlooked two things. First, over the last 40 years no other manager of the Iranian National Team has had eight years of uninterrupted and undisturbed opportunity to shape the team. Secondly, Iran’s plan when hiring Queiroz and paying him a salary that makes him the seventh most expensive head coach among all the national teams in the world and the most expensive in Asia is to ensure the team wins the Asian championship, not to repeat history.

“Eight years ago when I landed in Iran, 70 percent [of the team] shook in their boots when Iran was going to play a game against Bahrain,” Queiroz said. It is not clear from which source Queiroz got his “70 percent,” but it is important to remember that in the 2004 Asian Cup qualifying games, Iran decisively beat Bahrain’s National Football Team and stood in third place. And Queiroz downplayed the chances of Iran’s National Football Team winning the championship by saying: “The fact is that Australia, South Korea and Japan have the best chances of reaching the semi-finals.”

Iran, the Most Expensive Asian Team

The chances for Iran’s National Football Team, however, are not are not as dim as Queiroz has led people to believe, at least as the competition gets underway. According to figures published by the newspaper Farhikhtegan, not only does Carlos Queiroz command the highest salary among the coaches of Asian national teams, but the players for Iran’s team are also the most expensive in the Asian Cup competitions.

Queiroz receives a higher salary than many coaches, including UAE’s Alberto Zaccheroni, China’s Marcello Lippi, Australia’s Graham James Arnold, South Korea’s Paulo Bento, the Philippines’ Sven-Göran Eriksson, Iraq’s Srečko Katanec and Saudi Arabia’s Juan Antonio Pizzi. The website Transfer Market had predicted that the price for hiring Queiroz should be about $1.9 million but the Iranian Football Federation has a $2.5 million contract with him. And last year Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who will probably stay out of the first two games because of his injuries, broke a record as the most expensive player for the English football team Brighton & Hove Albion.

On Wednesday, January 2, it was reported that the Swedish-born Iranian footballer Saman Ghoddos, another member of Iran’s national team who plays for the French Team Amiens SC, is due to be selected as Sweden’s Best Footballer of 2018. He was chosen via a poll conducted among sports associations, football veterans and journalists under the supervision of Jämtland-Härjedalens Fotbollförbund, part of the Swedish Football Association.

AFC: Iran Is Aiming for the Championship

“Asia's top-ranked teams will need no motivation as Iran seek to add a fourth AFC Asian Cup title to its collection,” an article published on the AFC’s website says, part of a review of Group D ahead of the upcoming games. “It has been a long wait since their last triumph in 1976 and head coach Carlos Queiroz will surely get the best out of his squad.” Under the headline “Group D set to thrill,” the website reports: “Iraq ended [the Iranian National] Team’s campaign in the quarter-finals four years ago, while Vietnam is a team in good form. Yemen aims to be impressive in its debut, setting the stage for some exciting matches in the group.”

 

 

More about Iran at the 2018 World Cup:

Queiroz: A Game of a Different Kind, June 29, 2018

Iran-Portugal Tie: Who Could Have Imagined It?, June 25, 2018

Fans Disrupt Portugal Players' Sleep on Eve of Match, June 25, 2018

Iran-Spain: Not All Defeats Are Created Equal, June 21, 2018

Queiroz: "The God of Football Will Decide”, June 20, 2018

Iran Vs Spain: Before the Match, June 20, 2018

Mehdi Mahdavikia in Kazan, June 20, 2018

Big Boost in Jersey Sales as Iran Celebrates Win, June 18, 2018

Iran’s Victory against Morocco: The World Responds, June 17, 2018

Iran’s Last-Minute Miracle Win, June 15, 2018

Iran Fans in Moscow's Red Square, June 14, 2018

Iran vs. Morocco: The First Challenge, June 14, 2018

Decoding Iran’s Politics: Football and State Interference, June 11, 2018