Hopefully. But if they keep this form, they will be a force to be reckoned with come the round of 16.
Brazil have certainly lighten up the score boards in their first 2 games. Vow! That, incidentally, makes me even more proud of our boys for their game against Argentina, which are the South American U17 champions after all. Even if, from the looks of it, the best South American team is clearly Brazil, not Argentina. Anyway, while our next 2 opponents have exactly zero wins in past U17 World Cups between them, and Iran couldn't have asked for a better draw than getting Canada and Austria in its group, I checked and it seems the Canucks have a respectable enough side. They qualified from Concacaf ahead of Honduras, which seems headed to the next round in one of the other groups. And the reports from their 2:2 draw against Austria suggest that Canada was the better side. Clearly, Iran should not underestimate either Canada or Austria and should make sure that, having navigated its main hurdle (namely Argentina) so well in the opener, that it doesn't lose points to either Canada or Austria. These sides seem to me similar to Australia in that they seem to be physically adept but of limited technical ability, and our boys ripped apart Australia 5:1 in AFC qualifying.
Watched the game Italy-New Zealand, just out of curiosity. Italy was quite atrocious, players didn't show anything valuable and Zoratto is as useless as he ever was. Don't know why we go to these tournament if we don't do serious scouting and don't set up a real national academy. The 60% of these players will never play a single match in Serie A. A 35% will play a season or so in Serie A as sub and a 5% will do it.
Today's games: European champions Russia face early elimination and need a result against Tunisia, who grabbed a win over Venezuela. Russia has looked poor, so it remains to see whether Tunisia can captitalize. Beautifully playing Japan face a hurt Venezuela side. The weakest of the CONMEBOL countries faces a tough challenge againt the best of Asia. Two first day match losers Panama and Croatia search for their first win. After being obviously second-best in the opener the teams in question are fighting for tournament survival. Uzbekistan and Morocco on the other hand seem to be fighting for the group first spot. Was more impressed by Morocco, but should be a nice game.
As far as performance in this tournament is concerned, yes, Brazil is the best South American team - up to now, anyway. However, although Argentina won the 2013 U-17 CONMEBOL tournament, the statistics from that tournament show no Argentine superiority over Brazil. In the group stage, Argentina won 2 matches and lost 2, with 7 goals for and 7 goals against. Brazil won 3, drew 1, scored 8 goals, and had 2 goals against. In the final round, in which the survivors from the two group stage groups all faced each other, Brazil and Argentina both went unbeaten with 2 wins and 3 draws. It was here that Argentina scored 10 goals and had 6 against whereas Brazil had 6 scored but 4 against. When they went head to head, they drew at 0. Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela all tied at the end with 9 points each - it was the goal differential margin that gave the continental title to Argentina. In the youth level competitions in my home continent, Brazil is far ahead and above of Argentina. In the U-17 category, Brazil has 10 titles vs. Argentina's 3. There have been only 15 tournaments held, and Brazil has two four-peats (1995-2001 and 2005-2013) with a back-to-back in 1988 and in 1991. Brazil has a similar margin of superiority in the U-20 (11 titles vs 4 titles); Uruguay, incidentally, has 7 U-20 titles in South America.
Tunisia and Croatia with big 1:0 wins. European champions Russia on the verge of crashing out. BTW Tunisia has had the best defence I have seen at this tournament (whereas the Russian goalie is truely special).
Japan 2-1 vs Venezuela at halftime, it couldve easily been a lot worst. Japan team is small in statue but they can surprise. They have great technique and all the players can dribble nicely. Number 7 looks like the second coming of Kagawa. []__[]
Japan beat Venezuela 3:1, clinching a place in the Round of 16 with 6 points from 2 matches. In Japan's group, Tunisia also have 6 points and have clinched a place in the Round of 16, while Russia and Venezuela are both pointless. The last match between Japan and Tunisia will decide who wins this group. Japan will win the group even with a draw by virtue of a superior goal difference compared to Tunisia. Uzbekistan drew Morocco 0:0, giving both those teams 4 points from 2 matches, each having a goal difference of plus 2 thanks to their opener against Croatia and Panama respectively. With Croatia narrowly beating Panama in Group C, Panama is eliminated. However, with 3 points in the bag, Croatia can still even win the group, although most likely Morocco will also beat Panama and the real fight will be between Uzbekistan and Croatia over who ends up runner up in this group? As long as Uzbekistan doesn't lose to Croatia, they are assured of finishing no worse than 2nd in Group C. Iran, on the other hand, still have 2 games to play and nothing is decided in Iran's group yet. However, looking at the brackets for the next rounds, the winner of Iran's group will face the runner up team in Group D (either Tunisia or possibly Japan), while the runner up team in this group will have to play the winner of Group F (probably Nigeria, although too early to be sure).
Panama actually isn't out of it. If they win the last game and Croatia loses they may yet clinch a spot... however unlikely that is.
Actually, you have fallen back on relying on stereotypes for the Canadian squad. This squad is actually decent technically and good offensively but weak defensively in terms of both football intelligence and physical presence. The team has a quite a number of small, speedy players up front while the back four seem a bit lost out there at times.
Well, I admittedly don't know much about Canada's team. However, since posting that comment, I also read a comment attributed to Canada's coach which somewhat reinforced what I had said. Apparently, in the pregame press conference, in response to a question about Iran pressing tactics, he had said something to this effect: "I know it will be a physical game. We have analyzed Iran's team. Our team has physically strong and tall players and relying on them we hope we can nullify Iran's tactics." (The comments were translated and reported back in Persian in this site, and since I don't have the original English version of these comments, I have basically translated them back into English). But definitely, as I have not seen Canada's team, I have fallen back on stereotypes of what I would would expect Canada to be like.
A: Brasil, Honduras B: Uruguay, Italy, Ivory Coast C: Uzbekistan, Morocco, Croatia D: Japan, Tunisia, Russia E: Argentina, Iran F: Nigeria, Mexico, Sweden Round of 16: Argentina vs Tunisia Uzbekistan vs Ivory Coast Brazil vs Croatia Italy vs Mexico Honduras vs Morocco Japan vs Sweden Uruguay vs Russia Nigeria vs Iran Quarter-Finals: Argentina vs Ivory Coast Brazil vs Italy Honduras vs Japan Uruguay vs Iran Semi-Finals: Ivory Coast vs Brazil Japan vs Uruguay Final: Ivory Coast vs Uruguay
Ivory Coast is the recent African champion, and Uruguay is South American Champion stolen recently. Score: Argentina 3 - 3 Uruguay Table: Argentina 9 pts, Uruguay 8 pts Argentina south american "champion". Championship played in Argentina and directed by Grondona.
Iran beats Nigeria? That's quite a leap of faith. Secondly: Uruguay is currently second in their group. It's more likely that they meet Mexico in the 1/8 final and Brasil in the 1/4 final.
How I see it: A: Brasil, Honduras B: Italy, Uruguay, Ivory Coast C: Morocco, Uzbekistan, Croatia D: Japan, Tunisia E: Iran, Austria, Argentina F: Nigeria, Mexico, Sweden Round of 16: Honduras vs Uzbekistan Japan vs Ivory Coast Italy vs Croatia Nigeria vs Austria Iran vs Tunisia Morocco vs Sweden Brasil vs Argentina Uruguay vs Mexico Nigeria vs Brasil final
Japan looks great in every aspect of the game except defense and finishing plays. It could have been 5-1 or more. I like their tiki-taka style.
Iran needs to first worry about beating Canada and advancing from its group. But assuming we advance, I certainly would prefer facing Tunisia or Japan to facing Nigeria. Not that I would give up hope if our opponent was Nigeria. Incidentally, while I am not sure it is at all likely that we would advance to and meet Uruguay in the quarterfinals, if we do, we have an account to settle with them. Iran's U17 team in the 2009 U17 World Cup topped its group with 2 wins (against both the then European champions, the Netherlands, and the African champions, Gambia) and one draw (against Colombia). However, in the next round we met Uruguay, which had stumbled into the Round of 16 as the 3rd place team in its group. Nonetheless, Uruguay managed to beat Iran 2:1 in extra time, in a match that was played in drenching rain as I recall.
Mexico showing that they aren't as poor as the 6:1 thrashing would suggest. Well... Iran at least is representing. On the verge of qualifying if they win this.
Iran v. Canada 1:1 (1:0) The second half started badly for Iran, with Canada scoring an equalizer and thereafter even having a chance to take the lead. But the last quarter of the match was all Iran. In that time frame, we hit the post twice, and had at least 3-4 other clear cut chances, all wasted. This draw is disappointing as it makes it difficult for Iran to finish on top of its group. However, the good news is that Austria seems to be the weakest team in this group and I expect Iran to pick up 3 points in that match, even if it deserved picking 3 points in this one as well.
Given our misfortune (no clinical finisher), that match will end in a draw. We cant put it in the net for sh*t!
Perhaps, but I think we will beat Austria. This Canadian team had a cosmopolitan nature which made it a hybrid of an African, South American, and what you expect a typical Canadian team to be like. That made it more difficult for Iran to pure on the pressure until late in the game, as we had to worry about the somewhat nimble Canadian forwards. Although we dominated possession probably 60+/40, and had numerous and chances that we missed, the fact that the Canadians couldn't be totally ignored in our end of the field made the match a bit tense for our players. But I have this idea that Austria will be somewhat rubbish.