WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

For Morocco who last played a World Cup in 1998 and didn’t qualify for 20 years, you are very confident.

 

No, im not confident. I am only saying we are better than iran in defence, midfield, attack. And every other piece of grass on the pitch.

 

The only 3 players who would be called up if they were Moroccan are Azmoun, Alireza and maybe one left or right back.

 

What teams in europe does he mean?
Big differents with the balkan teams, nordic teams. south euorpe teams etc

 

Here is a good video covering goals and highlights from Morocco's qualification campaign for the World Cup.

 

The goals scored by Portugal on the road to Russia.

 

And this one for Spain.

 

You would need to ask them, but I think the main point these players and coaches stress is that playing Iran is different than playing other Asian teams, whether east Asian teams or those in the Middle East. The main point they all seem to emphasize in their comments is the physical strength of Iran's team. This is something, incidentally, that I noticed even Spain's coach mention as well, which showed to me he had done his homework on the Iranian team.

 

If we played in your confederation we would probably qualify to the world cup with our local players national team which is actually a team that is closer to Iran's level to be perfectly honest. They are kicking ass at the CHAN (2018 African Cup for local players) right now.

 

I guess making outlandish statements with nothing to back them up is the norm for Moroccan fans who post here! Otherwise, such claims from a side that is ranked below Iran by FIFA, ELO, and most of the main publications that do power rankings of the World Cup teams, would appear to require a bit more "substantiation" than your pronouncements on the subject!

In any case, let me just remind you that Morocco's loss to Saudi Arabia in World Cup 1994 is among a list of defeats CAF have suffered against AFC sides and it was only in World Cup 2014 (which was a poor tournament for Asian teams) that CAF managed to even the head-to-head record against teams from the AFC.

In case some of you need to be refreshed on the results between the two confederations at the World Cup, I will copy and paste from what someone else (nooshcat) posted in another thread a while back:

1994 Saudi Arabia 2-1 Morocco
1998 Saudi Arabia 2-2 South Africa
2002 Japan 2-0 Tunisia
2002 Saudi Arabia 0-1 Cameroon
2006 South Korea 2-1 Togo
2006 Saudi Arabia 2-2 Tunisia
2006 Iran 1-1 Angola
2010 Japan 1-0 Cameroon
2010 Australia 1-1 Ghana
2010 South Korea 2-2 Nigeria
2010 North Korea 0-3 Ivory Coast
2014 Japan 1-2 Ivory Coast
2014 Iran 0-0 Nigeria
2014 South Korea 2-4 Algeria

4-6-4.

 

Yea, it is widely known on this forum that Moroccan fans are the delusional ones lol

 

Since the last time Morocco had qualified to the World Cup, bigsoccer didn't even exist, Moroccan fans haven't had the chance to build any reputation for themselves yet. But many of you guys are quickly making an impression!

 

this thread started to bore me need to remove it from the watched thread

 

Stereotypes and generalizations used as an argument. Top level stuff.

Also, you must be confusing me with some other poster. I never compared Boutaib to Azmoun when writing to IM. If I did do so please paste it.

Also, it kind of defies mathematics that Iran is such an omnipresent team at the world cup while it qualified 5 times throughout its history just like Morocco. Fascinating.

 

It's funny that you felt the need to announce this to everyone.

 

3rd and 4th place fans arguing about who has the better attack, what's there not to like

 

I am actually tired of the arguments with Moroccan fans and would love to sit back and see fans of Spain and Portugal go at it against one another. Both are obviously better known teams so I am not going to necessarily learn as much as hearing from fans of sides like Morocco who (until recently) I had not really paid much attention to. But I guess it would still be interesting to see fans of Portugal show a bit more confidence against Spain as opposed to just keeping the bravado for Iran and Morocco! To be honest, while I rate Spain the 3rd best team in this tournament overall, if I were a fan of Portugal, I would certainly not concede Spain being as much the favorite against Portugal as some here seem to accept already!

 

We have a great rivalry with Spain and we've played pretty well against them in our last few competitive matches. We have the utmost confidence in ourselves vs Spain. Where have you seen any Portuguese poster say we'd finish second?

 

Does any national side other than Spain wear black socks? It's their trademark, I guess. Not the best of looks, imo though.

 

If Sweden was in this group instead of Iran or Morocco, ( i know 3 team from europe) the first match against Morocco/Iran i think we would go all in for 3 points. For me Portugal is one of the big big teams in europe now. For like 4 years ago i ranked them just below but they are up there with Spain now. We won over Italy at the play-off but for me Portugal and Spain gonna be tougher and i think let say we won over Iran/Morocco i think we could get 2 draw with a little luck.And maybe 5 points can get you to the knock outs. I think Sweden deserves to get a little more respect after this qualify and without Zlatan.
Well my point is hehehe, Portugal and Spain gonna be very tough for you!

 

It’s a fact that Arabs, Latinas, or even Koreans are emotional people who can get easily irritated and let their emotions get the best of them. Just look at how irritated you have all become because of one poster IM, well CQ is IM in real life and more. Iranians (Persians and Azeris particularly) fall into the same category actually, and can be even more emotional. And that has always been our weakness in all sports and reason why we used to choke at crucial times, surrendering leads late in the game, getting dubious red cards because of the playacting of our opponent. It’s also why we historically struggled against teams that got under our skin, like Saudi Arabia. But that has all changed under CQ who is a master at the mind games and now it’s us who get under the skin of other teams, on and off the pitch. You’ll see what I mean just before the World Cup when CQ and Iranian players start talking about Morocco.

Given the recent qualifying records of both teams and how ridiculous the CAF qualifying seeding and grouping is, it’s perfectly reasonable to predict that Iran will be at 2022 World Cup and Morocco won’t be. Even if you had a great World Cup in Russia, it’s still more likely than unlikely that you won’t qualify for 2022. Look at Algeria!

 

http://video.varzesh3.com/video/160018

Here are highlights of Moroccos qualifying games. Im sorry but im not impressed at all, moroccos offense is a joke they kept missing the easiest chances and their defence not allowing goals in the final qualifying round is due more to the opposition being so bad than the defence being good. Mali, Gabon and even this ivory coast all were easy teams and they created so many chances on Moroccos goal but kept messing it up that’s the difference Iran doesn’t allow teams to create chances and don’t rely on luck, Morocco also got a few favourable calls like pks not being given to the opposition and unjust red cards being given to the opposition, beating a 10 man Mali or Gabon at home is not impressive Iran would have easily qualified from Moroccos group. CAF is so over rated just because they have players in European leagues, sure even teams like Gabon and Mali have one or 2 good players in European leagues but as a team they really suck and I would rate them below a team like Uzbekistan. Iran as a team is a class above Morocco and I’m willing to bet against any Marakeshi or non Moroccan fan that Iran will beat or at worst draw Morocco, I have not been this confident against any of our world cup opponents before.

 

if Ivory Coast is a easy team, than maybe the teams you play against doesnt create chances

 

So how comes there aren't any Spanish fans on this forum? I don't think I saw a single one. I would be curious to hear their perspective on this group. I feel that Moroccan, Portuguese, and Iranian fans have had every argument possible (67 times) here lol

 

Oh CQ does that? It would very interesting to see. Everyone seems so humble so far.

And I do agree with you about how unstable and unpredictable CAF is. There is no guarantee that we won't end up in a group with two or three other big African teams. We'll definitely always qualify once the WC moves to 48 teams which starts in 2026 because Africa will have 9 slots. Any decent team will qualify at that point anywhere in the world...

To be honest I do admire the stability in the Iran team in terms of coaching. Is that normal in Iran or did it just start with Quieroz? 7 years is a long time!