2016 AFC U-23 Championship

Grow up Yas. We are talking about a serious issue of systematic forging of date of births by Iraqis. If I were you, I would be worried about Qatar and their Arab friends in high places taking on this issue and unlike Iran; they have the connections in AFC and FIFA to make Iraq disqualified or sanctioned. You may have found your match. This time, you cheated against the masters of cheating. And they won't take this lightly, trust me.

 

Let it go guys. Put Mani and the rest of his gang on ignore. They can't handle Iraq's success so they start to spin stories and try to find as much excuses as possible. Again, this is getting old.

Last time Qatar filed a complaint against us:

 

Nothing will happen because Qataris brought it up before the kick of of the tournament but they also realized it was crappy talk.

 

lol who cares. let the iraqis go to the olympics with their 30 year old players and still fail miserably ;p

 

Wait a minute here. You cared until the day Iran was eliminated by Japan. From that day on, for a lot of Iranian members over here, it was all about wishing to see Iraq fail.

I gotta say that's loser mentality.

 

nope, I knew that with this coaching staff we would lose from the beginning, and you are massively generalising like an idiot atm. my post before the tournament even started:

no I don't "wish" to see iraq fail, as I mentioned a few days ago i don't really care, but i know that cheating with overaged players can only take you so far.

 

The saddest thing is that if we hadn't knocked them out of the AC 2015, they wouldn't be saying anything negative about us now. Seems they still haven't got over that quarter final.

 

Well last time Iran cheated at youth level 15 years ago, there was such outcry about it in Iran that the head of the federation had to resign, with newspapers writing about how winning at youth level at the cost of developing real youth players for the senior side is somethings short-sighted Arabs would do and it was considered a national shame. And so Iran cleaned up house, and the next generation failed at youth level, yet went on to win 2002 Asian Games Gold medal, shine at the 2004 Asian Cup and qualify to the 2006 World Cup. That's the difference between civilized nations with long-term goals (World Cup) and deprived glory hunters who would be happy to win anything or qualify to any tournament at any cost. Iraq will never qualify to the World Cup as long as Iraqi officials continue seeking short-sighted glory at any cost.

 

1. Iraq qualified for the 2001 U20 World Cup
2. Qualified and reached the semifinals of the 2004 Athens Olympics
3. Won the 2007 Asian Cup
4. Came close to advance in the 2010 WCQ, beating Australia and China.

1. Iraq reached the semifinals of the 2013 U20 World Cup
2. Qualified for the 2016 Olympics
3. Reached the semifinals of the 2015 Asian Cup
4. Still in the race for 2018 WCQ.

We already translated youth success to senior level, and we are ready to do it again. You just have to keep in mind that we lack home advantage, so qualifiers will always be tough for us as long as we have to play on neutral venues.

 

Congrats Iraqis, well deserved.

The loss is as bitter as S.Korea's game, only because both games could have easily gone our way, which in the end is reassuring for the future of this team. I hope they have better luck in their senior careers.

There is a lot of vitriol online, which is disappointing considering all the Iraqis I know in real life are class people.

 

Overaged players had been a major issue in sub World Cups many years. Last winner, Nigeria, destroyed Brazil and Mexico with over 23 y/o players probably. That's another Sub World Cup to Africa. But Nigerian senior team is far away from the glories of their youth teams. Same with all other African teams except Ghana, who is playing good in both levels.
In countries with poorer conditions or in war, kids are born far from hospitals and are registered few years later, and that's really hard to prove it. All family knows but you can't prove it with documents... This issue will never end.

 

Thank you bro. Qatar has some very good players in the team. I'm sure we will hear more about them in the future, and they will for sure make an impact.

All the best!

 

Is that real? Would a newspaper badmouth Arabs in such a manner when there is no reason to in Iran? Is that sort of thing normal? Do they only write such things about Arabs or do they write such about Afghans, Uzbeks and the other surrounding countries?

I don't really care about the pathetic flaming between Iraqis and Iranians in this board. I do find organisations acting in a such manner to be pretty interesting.

 

Well in Iranian discourse, by "Arabs" they mean the various Sheikhdoms to the South, the tribes of the original Arabia, not Arabic-speaking countries in general. "Arabs" as used in Iranian media, only means Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait. It does not mean anyone who speaks Arabic and nor has the same meaning it does in English. It's actually used as an insult with negative connotations and in negative contexts. So it's not uncommon for media to cite what "Arabs" do, as an example of something an Iranian should not do, as being shameful and wrong so to speak. "Arabic-speaking nations" is the polite formal term media use for Arab nations in normal contexts.

Generaly speaking, Iranian popular culture considers people of Lavant and North Africa as cultured people who were victims of the Arabs after the Islamic conquests, similar to Iranians with the difference that Iranians kept their language and culture by resisting the Arabs, while the other cultures and civilizations in the area like that of Lebonan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt were not as fortunate and became Arabized so to speak. So average Iranian tends to hold a high opinion of Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptions and even Iraqis as old cultured nations, while looking down on the Arabs to the South as arrogant nouveau-riche who lack culture. Here is an example of what I mean:

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0UR1UO20160113

"Diplomacy is the domain of the mature; not arrogant nouveau-riche," Zarif shot back on Wednesday.

He did not mention the UAE directly, but commentators quickly identified his likely target. Iran is proud of its centuries-old civilization and historic power, in contrast to some of its Gulf Arab neighbors which leapt from obscurity into oil-fueled opulence in a few recent decades.

 

Thanks for the honest answer. To be completely honest with you I do find it that kind of attitude to be rather disgusting as I believe every human to be at the very least influenced by external factors beyond their control. On the other hand I kind of fall into that trap myself.

If asked who the most civilized people in the middle east, before the Syrian war. I'd probably say the Egyptians and Syrians due to them living in a secular society while retaining stability which has allowed them to progress their ethics and morals. At the very least respect the Egyptians more than the rest of the middle east. As for the Syrians. Well they're in worse shape than us which says a lot so I can't help but pity them.

It's a hypocritical thing, but I still find institutions acting in such an improper manner to be unprofessional and outright disgraceful even if I at some level think the same. Anyway thanks for the discussion, it's off topic and but well it was enjoyable and informative. Also it was at least better than the stupid flame war that people can not stop starting.

 

Your predictions for the final?

 

From what I've seen South Korea seems to be slightly sharper where as Japan always seem to produce results late in the game.

This Japan team is kind of weird, they let Iran dominate yet they managed to score 3 in extra time. They didn't dominate us as much as I expected and yet they won in the dying minutes. They're very good on the counters and have very shots from outside the box. They also have insane fitness levels and can go forever without being tired. Their defense is also very solid.

Korea on the other are very sharp, good all around with no glaring flaws. The Koreans seem to score more from build up and not to rely as much on counters.

I can see the Korea dominating only for Japan to score a winning goal late in the game. They'll pull what they did to Iran and Us is what I think. Then again I haven't seen all their games so I'm really not sure how it will turn out.

 

Welldone Iraq but 2018 WCQ not seats for Your because Thailand and Vietnam to take you out this tournament assure .

 

Mani, please stop barking. You are making us miserable.

Now that both Iran and Qatar couldn't qualify for the finals, it's safe to say the quality of our group was the weakest. *sigh*