Frankly, there is no beef between us and Iraqis. That was a stupid mistake by a referee which cost us the cup last time. Iraqis played their heart out to draw with a 10 men Iran team and took it to penalties. We tried our chance and failed simple as that. Let them be happy. This time around we can advance with only a draw or 1-0 scoreline. We don't need to revenge anything. If it was a knock out match then you were right. But for this match I prefer to rest Sardar, Torabi, Dejagah and even our main CBs. It can be a good practice match for our subs to get ready for knock out matches and semifinal where it matters. We are aiming for the final, and should not make our main players tired or possibly injured or pick up unnecessary yellow cards. If Iraqis are smart enough, they will do that as well. That is my personal opinion. When we aim for the title we should sacrifice little hard feelings for a bigger goal. Even with some of our bench players this match will be good to watch and we should manage a narrow win.
rest players? the iraq game will be like a final. if we win, we will go on the side of the bracket that will potentially allow us to avoid a top 5 asian team until the final. if we lose, we will potentially play our first knockout match against saudi in uae. you dont need to be nostradamus to predict the referee script for that game which takes place in UAE.
If we want to aim for title we should be ready for any team in knock out matches. If we qualify as first team we can head to S.Korea, on quarterfinal if they draw with China specially now that Ki Sung Yeung and Son Heung Min are not going to play. Btw, If Japan top their group, we will meet them on Semi, so there you are having two out of 4 big Asian teams in our way to the final.
That is such a meaningless trite. Yes, we should... anddddddddddddd? Persianfootball's comment is the only logical answer here. Just because we have to be ready to beat anybody that comes across our path it doesn't mean we should desire to play them or rest players in the match that could get us to the good side of the bracket!!!! Any other answer is illogical and wrong.
So you respond to the "meaningless trite" criticism with another internet cliche? Bravo. Flawless logic.
Quality is missing in this match. Most of the time the ball is in center of the field and there are more than usual physical challenges. A handball inside Iraqi penalty area by Iraqi defender was not seen by referee.
That one bloke, Ghoddos or whatever is a prick. Why would you stamp an opposing player like that? That aside I think it was a good, clean game by both teams. High intensity too.
after scraping a draw conceding 2 non-called penalties, iraq are 2nd place, and will be eliminated in the next round
Complaining about the ref? Iran should have had 10 men for the whole second half. I hope you enjoyed all the goals you scored against us today, must have been some great revenge! Worth the 4 years wait right?
The Asian Cup trophy will be worth it. For now, we are top of the group and on our way to the Cup, and you’re right where you belong, under mighty Iran, in the shadows of Asia’s #1 team, and on your way to getting Saudied and an early exit.
Yeah, that Ghoddos guy should have been redded in the first half. Anyways, we had an OK match and outplayed the opponent judging by the number of shots on target (Iraq 3-1 Iran). MOM is Iran's goalkeeper. He made a miraculous save.
2/3 of those shots were harmless, straight at the goalkeeper you are also ignoring the 15-8 shots statistic, probably because it makes iraq look very toothless, which they are. collection of no-name abdullahs. iraq is not a team that you anticipate for 4 years to play. its like waiting 4 years to play yemen or malaysia. its amazing there are more than 2 fans of such a nation on this site. but i digress.
A team on the level of Yemen and Malaysia won the Asian Cup in 2007 (31 years more recently than you), knocked you out in 2015, and kept a clean sheet against you today which would be a loss for you if you had the red card. Pretty embarrassing for Iran! But I digress.
Honestly I'm done with all those pointless discussions. I'm proud of the performance today. Let's be honest here. Iran is one of the top teams in Asia and they have stability (CQ is coaching for 8 years) and they are really hard to beat, even Portugal and Spain struggled to do so. Iraq did really well, and I already think about the next game against either KSA or Qatar. We have 6 days of rest and hopefully we can go further in the tournament. The coach is thinking long term, wants us to qualify for the World Cup 2022 and I think we have a good chance now that we can play at home again and have a good pool of players to choose from
since iraq were so toothless playing against 11 men, how were they going to be better if a non-defensive player was sent off? they couldnt even draw in 2015 without a penalty.
It seems you are celebrating a draw while you should win to survive. I mean we understand how big an achiement it is for you to draw with us. Good for you. Reality is we came to this match for a draw and we walked out with a draw, so we achieved our objection. You came for a win and walked out with a draw. You failed your objection. We fielded sub players for midfield and RW and rested our CB, RW, MF, FW to have fresh legs for knock out matches. You distrupted our midfield weak point Rouzbeh Cheshmi and had few chances but failed to score. I am not happy with Iran performance today specially the midfield but I didn't expect them to press hard Iraq either which they didn't. What was the point for us to make our key players tired for a 2-0 or 3-0 scoreline? 10-0 or 0-0 both would sent us through as first team. If our match was at first day you would see a different result. Btw, don't forget you got away with two PK not being given to Iran.
Even Iran's own player Ghoddos said this was a revenge match for Iran and that he had been waiting for 4 years for the match. And with the way Iran fans like the guy above describes Iraq as if we are a small team on the level of Yemen and Malaysia just makes it hilarious that you couldn't beat us again and had to hang on for a 0-0 after all your talk. You can pretend like you aren't disappointed if you want, that just makes it funnier for us. Iraq is not in a period of stability like Iran, we just got a new coach a few months ago and lots of young players, and look how far we came in that short space of time. That's why we are proud of the team. A few months ago we wouldn't expect to get anything from a match like this. Bring on Saudi Arabia, we have enough to beat them if we continue our performances, but even if we are eliminated we go into the WCQ in a much better state than previous years. Bright future for our boys inshallah.
Yeah right. All that trash talk about avenging the 2015 loss, predictions about Iraq being 3rd after Vietnam. Don't you get tired of yourself?