At the same time it shows the defense is much stronger in group A, that makes it hard to score goal. Switch Thailand and Iraq with Qatar and China and the number of goals will go high in our group.
Not really though, as I stated earlier the two highest scoring games in Group A contained both Qatar + China... Take either of those teams out of Group A, and you actually come out with an even lower GPG average, 1.33.... do the same for Thailand and you still get a 2.5 GPG in Group B... again, I'm not saying more goal automatically means higher quality by any means... just saying it's an interesting contrast.
I don't think so. Even Iran's best striker (Azmoun) is still unproven in the top leagues and he has scored only 4 times in 17 games in Russia. Ghoochannejhad and Ansarifard often score but the two guys play in non-top 10 leagues in Europe. The former plays in the declining Eredivisie (13th) and the latter in Greece (14th). Japan and Korea have better goalscorers. Japan Osako - Their current #1 striker who has 6 goals & 7 assists this season in Bundesliga. Kubo - Their starlet who has scored 5 goals in 7 games since moving to the Belgian league, which is ranked within the top 10 leagues and stronger than the Dutch and Greek league. Okazaki - He is a starter for a UEFA CL quarter-finalist. Minamino - He is the third best goalscorer in the Austrian league, which is ranked #15 and almost equal to the Eredivisie and Greek league. But he isn't even called up because his league is weak. Korea Son Heung-min - Their #1 goalscorer who plays for the second best team in EPL and has 6 goals & 5 assists in the league. Ji Dong-Won - He is a starter in Bundesliga.
And to say Azmoun, Ghoochannejhad and Ansarifard are more in form than any European based AFC players is a huge overstatement. Look at Japan. Gotoku Sakai is a captain in Bundesliga but he stayed on the bench last week. Takashi Inui, a starter in the Spanish top division isn't even called up.
Take a look at Azmoun minutes in RPL matches to know why he has not scored too much so far this season. 7 out of 17 matches he played less than 45 minutes because they were busy in Russian cup and Uefa CL and EL. He scored goals vs Ajax, Anderlecht, PSV Eindhoven, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Sparta Praha,... tell me one of those Japanese or Korean players who scored or assisted the same amount goals in EL or CL. Your comparison is totally unfair. Eredivisie is on par or even better than Belgium league. Austrian league is a joke and comparable or lower than Greek league. Iranian striker Gucci is the second best goal scorer of Eredivisie by 14 goals so far. Karim Ansarifard was also a good striker in Panionios scoring and assisting many goals before he left for Greek biggest club Olympiacos. He just joined Olympia and has scored 2 goals in EL as well. He still needs more practice to move to a better league in France or Portugal. Azmoun has not been prolific just in past month but he usually bounce back scoring goals left and right. This is his style. Among Japanese and Korean players who you mentioned only SHM and Okazaki are on equal ground with Azmoun while they are older and have more experience. Azmoun had serious offer from Liverpool to fill up the gap when Sadio Mane wanted to leave for African Championship, but he declined the offer because he wanted to have enough playing minutes even after Mane come back to Liverpool and not to stuck to the bench. Another legitimate reason that he doesn't score too many goals compared to many other Asian players in Europe is that his team is very defensive and he is pretty much alone on opponents goal. His teammates don't provide him with enough support and usually go to deep defensive mode with several layers. If he moves to a mid table team in top 5 leagues which has less defensive mentality, he can score more goals.
We have many top Iranian players with many potentials who can play in top 10 European leagues but Iranian players are not marketable as Korean, Japanese and somehow Australians are. Even Chinese players are more marketable than Iranian players. On average it is harder for an Iranian to sign a deal with European clubs compared to many other Asian nations. But we hope it will change after WC 2018 because our players will be exposed to major scouts. Now we don't have enough exposure so only Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Greek, Dutch and few other recruiters from lower European leagues approach our talents. When we prove our worth in WC better offers should come naturally. I can name over 10 Iranian players who worth to play in top 10 European leagues already so it is just the matter of time for us Iranian fans to see them shining in Europe next year. It will be once again like late 90s and early 2000s when we had dozen of players in top European leagues ahead of all other Asian nations. To remind you of our presence in Europe I just name few Bundesliga 1. Ali Daei: Bayern Munich, Herta Berlin, Arminia Bielefeld 2. Ali Karimi: Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 3. Vahid Hashemian: Bayern Munich, VfL Buchum, Hamburger SV, Hanover 96 4. Mehdi Mahdavi Kia: Hamburger SV, Eintracht Frankfurt, VfL Buchum 5. Karim Bagheri : Arminia Bielefeld 6. Khodadad Azizi: FC Koln 7. Feryedon Zandi: FC Kaiserslautern 8. Ali Mousavi: Bayer Leverkusen 9. Sirious Dinmohammadi: FSV Mainz 10. Alireza Mansourian: FC St. Pauli 11. Moharam Navidkia: VfL Buchum . . . . LaLiga 1. Javad Nekounam: Osasouna 2. Masoud Shojai: Osasouna Serie A: 1. Ali Samereh: Perugia Calcio 2. Rahman Rezai: Perugia, Messina, Livorno Championship: 1. Karim Bagheri: Charlton Athletic 2. Ando Teymourian: Bolton, Fulhan 3. Hussein Kaabi: Leicester City And a bunch of others in Dutch, Belgium, Greek and other lower European leagues
His 0.34 goals per 90 minutes ratio in the RPL aren't as impressive as the top 10 scorers in the league who all have 0.40 goals per 90 minutes at worst. If he wants to shine in better leagues, he needs to do better than the 10th best scorer in the RPL. Here is the latest UEFA rankings. The Belgian league is #9 and has 42 points and the Eredivisie is #13 and has 29.863 points. Based on points, the Austrian league is almost equal to the Eredivisie and greek league. I'm not saying the Austrian league is strong, though. The Dutch NT's continuous poor performances are reflections of the decline of their domestic league. The Belgian league exports more successful players to the major leagues than the Eredivisie today. Guys like Memphis Depay and Vincent Janssen screwed up big time in England. The Greek league has also declined a lot because of Greece's bad economy. I remember a random Australian striker called Apostolos Giannou was leading the scoring chart last season. He is struggling to score in China now. Both Son and Okazaki have scored at least 40 goals in the major leagues while Azmoun hasn't done anything in the same places. Even Osako has better attacking stats this season than Azmoun in a tougher league.
It is damn obvious you answer selectively and dodge my major questions and points. Did you even bother reading what I wrote about Azmoun? How many goals and assists he has in CL and EL? name me one Asian player that had as much as Azmoun in CL and EL this season? If you think you are fair. You have no answer for it that is why going to all those statistics to sum up something to back up your stand. Any fair observer can decide here after reading our comments. When Azmoun was busy scoring goal in Champions league and Europa League, he was constantly switching with other forwards in RPL to keep Rostov competitive on both ground. Rostov even directed most of their efforts to shine in CL and EL instead of RPL. Being in an extremely defensive team, Azmoun is almost alone on the opponent half and receives very little support from his teammates. Whenever he has enough chances he scores for Rostov and he has proven himself scoring against European giant clubs. If Azmoun was not good enough, Liverpool wouldn't offer him a deal. Doubting Azmoun is just funny. This is an ever changing ranking and from my observation top dutch teams are still more successful than top Belgium teams. It is the matter of wrong or right draw and next season can change pretty much. Based on your logic Eredivisie is very close to Turkish and Czech leagues which are just right after Belgium league so not far from each other. Yes both Dutch league and Belgian league are in decline. Ansarifard is playing for Olympiacos not a random Greek club. They are always active in CL and EL and have decent run. Only two clubs are in good condition in Greek league, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos. Otherwise, I agree Greek league is not a top European league but it is still a good place to start for Asian players.
dont get too riled up over this so called ghengis khan character. he has a track record of being an anti-Iran troll. his illogical and arbitrary selection criteria for comparing players (ie ignoring azmoun scoring in the CL.. lawl) showcases that. he is most likely an arab troll trying to sow the seeds of discord.
You are very selective in your arguments. How is being a starter in Bundesliga equivalent to being in form lmao Ghoochannejhad is the 2nd top scorer in Eredivisie, regardless of its decline there aren't many AFC strikers that could do the same. Ansarifard is performing in a UCL/EL level team like Olympiacos. And Azmoun has easily had better UCL performances at 21 years old than any AFC player this year by a margin. At national team level his record speaks for itself, he already is performing better than all other Japanese, Korean and Australian strikers. Any AFC team, including Australia and Korea would love to have any of them 3 right now
We've all seen his arguments about Iran lol, I would say he is a sock puppet who also owns either the Qatari account or that Australian troll's account. I see some similarities
If you check out that chart, you will see that the Belgian league has scored better on the European coefficient for each of the past five seasons. So that isn't an incident, but a trend.
If he is so good, he could have better goals per 90 minutes ratio in the RPL, which is the 6th league in Europe. There are five top RPL attackers who moved to the major leagues in the last two seasons. Unfortunately, all five of them failed badly. Seydou Doumbia 2013/14 - 18 goals in 22 games in RPL 2014/15 - 7 goals in 12 games in RPL 2015/16 - 2 goals in 13 games in Serie A Kevin Kurányi 2014/15 - 10 goals in 24 games in RPL 2015/16 - 0 goals in 14 games in Bundesliga Oumar Niasse 2015/16 - 8 goals in 15 games in RPL 2015/16 - 0 goals in 5 games in EPL Maciej Rybus 2015/16 - 9 goals in 29 games in RPL 2016/17 - 0 goals in 15 games in Ligue 1 Ahmed Musa 2015/16 - 13 goals in 30 games in RPL 2016/17 - 2 goals in 18 games in EPL I don't think Rostov is so defensive. They have the 6th most goals scored in the league. Last 5 seasons. 2012/13 - Belgium 6.500 > Netherlands 4.214 2013/14 - Belgium 6.400 > Netherlands 5.916 2014/15 - Belgium 9.600 > Netherlands 6.083 2015/16 - Belgium 7.400 > Netherlands 5.750 1016/17 - Belgium 12.100 > Netherlands 7.900 The Belgian league is getting better and better every year. That's why Belgium topped the world rankings for the first time. Meanwhile, the Netherlands slipped out of the top 20 of the world rankings for the first time because of the decline of the Eredivisie. What I wanted to say is that it's easy to score in the Greek league. A random Australian player who has only 4 caps was the best scorer there.
Being the 2nd top scorer in the 13th league isn't that impressive. The same goes for Minamino who is the 3rd top scorer in the 15th league in Europe. And the latter isn't even called up for his country. He has only played 237 minutes so far there. I've just looked up stats and Kagawa has recorded 2 goals and 1 assist for Dortmund but I agree that Azmoun did well in UCL this season. However his RPL stats are far from the major leagues material. Azmoun - 4 goals & 1 assist in the RPL (6th league) Son Heung-Min - 6 goals & 5 assists in EPL (3rd league) Osako - 6 goals & 7 assists in Bundesliga (2nd league)
Ghoochannejhad is 2nd top scorer in Eredivisie but still is a benchwarmer for the 1st ranked team in Asia No one really cares about his RPL stats when he shows that he can perform and score against the very best teams in the world, while playing for a defensive team. If he was playing for Dortmund with that service he would probably scoring double. That's easily much more major league material than anything else Azmoun - 2 goals & 1 assist in UCL (vs Atletico Madrid and Bayern), 2 goals in UCL qualies Son Heung-Min - 1 goal in UCL Osako - N/A Azmoun - 16 goals in 23 apps for NT Son Heung-Min - 17 goals in 52 apps for NT Osako - 5 goals in 18 apps for NT and Azmoun is younger than both of them. Pretty sure most logical Korean fans would come here and say Azmoun would undoubtedly be a guaranteed starter up-top for them, while we don't even know your country (we just know you love South east Asians) and are way more deluded than the actual Japanese/Korean fans. Anyhow, my initial point was that our strikers depth (Azmoun, Ghoochannejhad, and Ansarifard) was better than all in AFC, maybe except Japan, and it still stands
Do you consider Anderlecht, Brugge and Standard Liege stronger than PSV, Feyenoord and Ajax? We all know both leagues have some Micky Mouse teams. From what I have witnessed watching Belgian and Dutch leagues both of them are on decline and almost same level. If I was an average talent I would prefer Dutch league over the Belgian and I wouldn't spend more than 2-3 years there either. We have had 6-7 Iranians footballers in Belgium and non of them were successful there. I don't know what is the factor but our players usually adjust well and shine in Bundesliga and Dutch league. Anyhow. European coefficient leagues was as follow up to very recently. (2016-2017) Dutch League 40.97 Belgian League 37.20 All I can see is lucky chance for Belgian teams to have right draw while Dutch teams having the tougher pass. This year CL comparison of Belgian and Dutch teams PSV ended group matches with 2 points in group with Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and Rostov Brugge ended group matches with 0 points in group with Leicter City, Porto, and Copenhagen! Ajax won the third round play off match vs PAOK and advanced to the next round while Anderlecht lost to Rostov and got eliminated It is clear Dutch teams performance was far better in CL this year compared to Belgian teams. This year EL comparison of Belgian and Dutch teams 2nd round play offs Genk won Montenegran Team on penalties 3rd round Genk won Irish team Gent won Romanian team AZ won Greek team Heracles Almelo lost to Portuguese team on away goals Last play off round Gent won the Macedonian team Genk won the Croatian team Anderlecht won the Czech team AZ won Serbian team Group Stage Feyenoord finished third of the group after Turkish Fenebahce and Manchester city AZ finished second after Zenit Saint Petersburg and above Irish and Israeli teams Ajax finished top of the group above Celta Vigo and Standard Liege Anderlecht finished second of the group after French Saint Ettiene and above Azerbaijani team and Mianz! Genk finished top of the group above Atletico Bilbao and Rapid Wien Standard Liege finished third of the group Gent finished second of the group after Shakhtar Donetsk and above Braga and Konyaspor R32 Anderlecht won Zenit on away goals Genk won some Romanian team Gent won Tottenham Hotspur Ajax won a Polish team AZ lost to Lyon R16 Anderlecht won a Cyrpiot team! Genk won fellow Begian Gent Ajax won Copenhagen It is also clear that the dutch teams had tougher draws compared to Belgians in early stages but Beligian teams performed better in later levels. I still think both leagues are pretty close and our top players should avoid them in future.
Don't answer that guy. It is obvious he is trolling. Also you forgot to add Azmoun goal in EL. Son or the other Japanese guy didn't score any goal in EL either.
Whether they are the best striking squad or not, The combo of Gucci, Azmoun, Ansarifard, Taremi is great because they are so interchangeable. All have decent pace, all can play wings to some extent, all can win headers and link up. All of them have individual dribbling attributes. Dejagah is out for injury and no one seems to care because Iran covered the problem so well. I think CQ changes players for China. Shojaei can dribble through a midfield and look for through balls which is IMO how we get players in on goal.
Just to further my argument, based on transfermarkt, the total value of the 3 best CFs of each of the big 4 are: Iran: 16 Million € (Azmoun + Ghoochannejhad + Ansarifard) Japan: 14.5 Million € (Okazaki + Kubo + Muto) Korea: 5.6 Million € (JDW + SHJ + KSW) Australia 3.35 Million € (Cahill + Juric + Leckie) So yes even on paper, Iran has the strongest center forwards, especially considering current forms
So many silly arguments here. For example, starting and preforming well for the top Greek side Olympiakos with so much history and pedigree, is obviously better than starting for random team in a better league and doing shit. Also, collectively , the Iranian players have scored 11 goals and assisted another 6 goals in UEFA competitions this season, which is more than all the other Asian players combined. And far more important than domestic leagues. This Chengis Khan guy reminds of a certain Qatari troll who has gone MIA lately for obvious reasons. Just ignore him. The simple fact is that Iran is the undisputed top side in Asia now. We also have the youngest side in Asia with the most potential for further development. These trolls can be butt-hurt about it and deny it all they want, facts are facts. Iran is #1 in Asia.
Having the 2nd top scorer in the 13th league on the bench isn't a big deal. Apostolos Giannou was the leading scorer in the 14th league but he has only 5 caps. Takumi Minamino is the 3rd top scorer in the 15th league but he has only 1 cap. I don't think Dortmund want a player who has scored only 4 goals in the RPL. Azmoun plays for 7th team in Russia. Son plays for 2nd team in one of the best leagues. Osako plays for 6th team in one of the best leagues. You guys rely on CL football but Okazaki will start at the CL quarter-finals. Where is Azmoun at the knockout stage? Almost half of Azmoun's international goals are against Asian minnows and he has scored only 1 goal in 6 games at the final qualifying round.
Don't lie to yourself. I am a visitor on PFDC and most of the Iranian fans have "big leagues complex" nowadays.
Do Chinese and Koreans hate each other? I know both Chinese and Koreans hate Japan with a passion because of their past invasions, though.