apparently there was a moment of silence in remembrance to the iranians who lost their lives in the plane crash and some idiots were booing during that minute of silence. shameful and disrespectful behaviour
I dont know what the general view of Iraqi towards Iranian football is but I can tell you for the most part Iranians like Iraqi football because you guys dont play dirty. Iraq is one of the few Arab nations which I would support ( of course when not playing Iran) along with Egypt , Algeria , and Syria.
Thought the exact same thing. When Iraq first scored I went 'wow this looks familiar.' I thought Saudi Arabia and Iran are the favorites to win this tournament this time around. Now that Saudi Arabia disappointed a bit, I'm going to have to shift the prediction to just Iran (with Australia and Japan trailing right behind). They look very well prepared, like they should have (disappointingly, which KSA didn't seem to).
There were a few disrespectful bedouins among the Arab fans who attended the game, therefore their actions shouldn't be associated to the Iraqi fans since the Iraqis acted in a very respectable manner for their Iranian neighbors and showed sympathy and respect towards Iran in the 2 minutes of silence and during the Iranian national anthem. So you'll have to ignore those backward bedouins who caused a bit of controversy, most of them were either local Qataris or from neighboring Gulf states, you'll know who they are. Anyway, I'd like to congratulate my Iranian brothers and sisters for winning the match but more importantly I'd like to express my condolences to those who died in the airplane crash, and to all their families, friends and loved ones. May they rest in peace and kudos to the Iranian players who tried to dedicate this victory to their lost passengers by not overly celebrating when scoring. Anyway, good luck to Iran and Iraq. I love both of these countries and both the Iranian/Persian and Iraqi peoples. They maintained themselves very well, didn't grassroll like us Khaleejis and held themselves to high regards of professionalism. I hope to see both teams making it through to the quarter finals. Good game. ====================== As for UAE vs. North Korea, the Koreans should have won. I don't expect to see a single goal scored by UAE throughout this tournament and I'd love to see Iraqi whipping their backsides.
thank you for your nice words man! it means a lot i agree iraq played a well game in a respected manner (i expected no less) and it was a fair play match.
I'm surprised you would say this because judging on the past year or two of Asian Football, I would think one would rank Japan and South Korea as the top contenders followed by Australian and the Saudis and the followed by Iran. Given the set-up of the groups, given that Iran qualifies to the QF, we will 99% play either Australia or South Korea, which is where most of us think our journey will end. However, if the Saudis are not able to do a massive turnaround and Syria ends up as runner-ups in Group B, the winner of the Iran-South Korea/Australia match will most likely play the winner of the Syria-Uzbekistan/China game. Even though it's still early, I'm hoping that South Korea beats the Aussies to take first place in the group so Iran can avoid them in the QF (I think we have a slightly better chance vs the Aussies). If Iran can miraculously win, and also beat the semi-final team, there's a very high chance that we would play the winner of a possible South Korea - Japan game.
Iam surprise with North Korea they are toughest team in the group but show such a poor performance against UAE Iran - Iraq best match in first round as far and i think this is strongest group at tournament its open for all four teams to Qualified in the next round
I'd agree with Group D being the strongest and quite even based on the first round thus far. What surprised me was that Iraq and UAE were stronger than i expected which gives the whole Group a lift. It's a pity they two qualifiers from this Group will play off against the two qualifiers from Group C which is probably the next toughest Group at the moment. The top half of the draw is the place to be.
Dear friend, You showed a lot of class in that simple post of yours. It's always well appreciated when sportsmanship wins the day. I agree with you that the disgraceful beghaviour of a few fans should not be an assessment on a whole nation. It makes it more important when you can consider the possibility of such dispecable acts being orchestrated in advance by those who would benefit from divion amongst people. Again, with fans like yourself ther is hope. As for the game, as I said earlier both sides created some quality chances, and both seem to be among the best so far. Iraq has enough quality to beat both UAE and N. Korea; hope they put this behind them just as Iran must do the same and concentrate on the next game. I wouldn't be surprised if we meet again in the toruny.
I enjoyed Iran's win over Iraq as I felt both teams showed quality. While Iran was the better team, the result of this game was at no point foreordained. Throughout the match, even in the periods that Iran was dominating, I felt Iraq showed it had what it takes to hurt Iran. For me, it was a very tense game which made the result at the end even more enjoyable. Kudos to both teams for playing well, although in terms of sportsmanship, I actually expected better from Iraq. Frankly, I saw a couple of things from them that I didn't like, but no need to dwell on it. I still find Iraq (along with Syria and Lebanon), and unlike many of the Persian Gulf sheikdoms and the like, an Arab country that Iranians can identify with. Anyway, good luck to both teams and I certainly hope to see both make the next round. I should mention, incidentally, that statistically Iran has played Iraq 21 times, and now won 11 times, has 5 draws and 5 losses. Our last loss as I recall was in the 1996 Asian Cup. In other words, on purely a statistical level, this game was always Iran's to lose. Similarly, our next game against North Korea is against a team that has never in its entire history defeated Iran, despite playing us on numerous occasions. The best result North Korea has against Iran are a couple of draws at home. We have almost always beat them, with our draw in Pyongyang during the last World Cup qualifiers somewhat an exception to the rule. From what I saw from N.Korea against the UAE, I don't think they have what it takes to change their historic fortunes against Iran, but this is football and nothing is for certain. Except that Iran is better than North Korea
come again? North Korea qualifies for the wc an they are suddenly the toughest in the group?? lmao India qualified out of the Asian zone to the WC way back when, maybe they are also the toughest in group c?
so yesterday my Canadian soccer buddy comes up to me and starts talking about the Iran-Iraq game. He asks me if it will end in a blood bath etc... I was reading the same thing all over the net! I think both teams shut every buddy up quite good. About the match... 1) I didn't know wheter I should be happy or sad when Iran scored the second goal. That poor guy who gave the idiotic foul away must have suicidal thoughts right now. 2) why were there so many arabs in the stands supporting Iran? Are they Iranain arabs living in Qatar? 3) Iraqis must feel like shit right now and as dumb as it sounds, I kind of feel guilty but at the end of the day I obviously wanted Iran to win. Football in that part of the world means everything for people when they have nothing else. In Iran people are living under a repressive theocracy and Iraqis are living through a war. These games will bring smiles on many faces. does anybody have the extended highlites for the UAE-Korea game?
Dont underrate them North Korea qualifies for the world cup along with Australia, South Korea and Japan so simply they are among best 4 teams in Asia in the present
lol okay bud whatever you say they got to the world cup by parking the bus. North Korea plays the most anti football game ON THE PLANET. KSA and Iran were also extremely weak in that campaign. Again, India got to the WC once upon a time but... Iraq, iran, SKorea, Japan, KSA, Australia, UAE are all better then North Korea (there must be a couple more that I forgot). You might be able to qualify for the wc by parking the bus, but you won't achieve shit in ANY TOURNAMENT by playing anti football. btw I didn't see their game today so I don't know how they played.
A fully class-act post by a classy member, Kudos to you my friend! On a side note, congrats to my fellow Iranians, may we keep on improving as the tournament proceeds and won't disappoint in the upcoming matches.. Iraq indeed played a nice and clean football, Iraq for sure is a great football nation and I am almost 100% positive that they will advance from this group.
Here's a vid I got from the match - caught the winning goal! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbSSydCs8N0"]YouTube - Iran 2-1 Iraq - Iman Mobali scores winning goal in Asian Cup 2011[/ame]
what is it with this tournament and not a single arab team winning? sorry, been trying to throw that one in a thread for a while now
Yes, Moqool is truly classy Exploiting a tragedy to pass through digs at other countries instead of giving condolences respectfully.
I think AFC website has some cool stats on each game which could be interesting to football geeks Stats: Iran - Iraq Shots on target: 6 - 3 Shots off target: 10 - 3 Corners: 5 - 5 Crosses: 16 - 17 Fouls: 19 -25 Offsides: 0 - 3 Yellow card: 0 - 1 Possession: 61 - 39 Distance Run (Km): 105 - 102 Most active player: Anderanik Teymourian of Iran with 11.1 Km The heatmap of where both teams spent most of their time: Iran: Iraq:
Ok now I am kind of getting obsessed with this. I haven't checked all the teams yet but I think Teymourian so far is the player who is been running the most. Just look at these stats: Who else in this tournament has been outstanding so far let me know would love to check his stats.