In all seriousness, I liked the Iran national team before we played them in the Asian Cup. I was supporting them during the 2014 World Cup and you can probably find posts of me rooting for them. But it was after we knocked them out of the 2015 Asian Cup that I lost complete respect for Iranian fans. There was a thread on the Persian-Football forums with like 250 pages about Iran fans trying to get Iraq kicked out of the tournament and get themselves reinstated and they were insulting Alaa Abdul-Zahra. There was another thread about trying to get a "life ban" imposed on Ben Williams and they insulted him repeatedly, there was a thread about protesting outside the stadium in Iraq's semi-final match (about what?) and saying that they wanted to move to UEFA and join the UEFA Nations League, they made an entire thread celebrating our losses against South Korea and UAE, we had trolls coming over on BigSoccer too and a load of them were mocking us about the war situation going on in our country. I have never, and probably will never, see a group of fans react in such an embarrassing and disgusting way to losing a football match. Still to this day, over 2 years later, we still get Iran fans coming on our forum and trying to cause trouble. They still haven't recovered from that match and it's humiliating for them. Anyway, I just wanted to make it clear that Iran fans are the ones who have started all this. I've said everything I need to say about this now so let's get back to talking about Iraq.
Why is it that any time Iraq plays Iran, we get classless iranians coming to our forum to trash our team. Absolutely pathetic fanbase.
I understand. There is definitely some childishness on all sides. No one is free of blame and I can see why you have responded. I wouldn't like if someone came to my board and said all this (unprovoked). The problem is, many Iranians, when they think of Iraq, they think of that Asian Cup 2015 game, even when this game is just a prep game and friendly. Yes, that was a bad referring decision, but bad referring decisions are part of the game. Unfortunately, that ruined our campaign where we had a team good enough to win it all - much like 2004, where a ref decision saw us knocked off). I think it was this WCQ campaign where Iraq was screwed by the whistle vs. Saudi Arabia? That probably dampened your team's efforts. This is the wrong mentality on our behalf to constantly mix that game with this friendly game or any other future games between our respective countries. Clearly, there is wrong on both sides, but this time, I agree - Iranians coming here and saying bad things without provocation is not right. Just like Iraqis (and Iranians) on some social media sites provoking, is not right. But sports - esp. football between countries - sometimes brings out the worst in people.
Your problem is that you are comparing your funded and supported team against a team that can't play at home and has almost zero funds for anything.
Dude I don't know what are you referring too. I wasn't even here during 2015 AC but from the comments you can see both side were having tough times. For this match most Iranians didn't even bother to follow because most of our first choice players were in Europe and there was no broadcast. I came here after I saw suren's enthusiasm posting in our forum. Then I followed him here and I said let have some fun. I had no idea some people start bringing up the old dirty laundry. So keep it real but classy. Banters are good as long as they don't get out of hand. Cheers.
Good points. I definitely see where you are coming from. But also remember, during the 2004 Asian Cup campaign, we had tons of pro-Iraq cheerleading posts on Persianfootball.com, Iransportspress.com etc. I mean these pages reached 50+ pages if I remember correctly on Persianfootball.com. It was bonaza and I have never seen Iranians come together so much to support ANOTHER team, esp. country. Just like my Iraqi friend told me how much he and his family were cheering on Iran in the 1998 World Cup games and actually cried when they beat USA! (surprised me he said this) I actually think when we think of pure footballing reasons, there are tons of reasons why Iranians and Iraqis can appreciate each other's footballs. As objective fans, there are tons of good will between our peoples. Everyone has trolls and really, if we look at trolls of any country/club, we will hate everyone. So it's best to not let them ruin emotions too much.
I agree - I mentioned that in my post where I said "playing at home" as one of the main reasons why we haven't seen the full potential of your team. Our funding is quite terrible too but because of good luck, Carlos Queiroz has been an equalizer of sorts and has brought us out of darkness, in many ways. Still a lot to be desired but a good head coach that cares can improve chances too. BTW, Saw the Karbala stadium, mashallah, looks fantastic! We also have a decent new one as well, Imam Reza Stadium in Mashhad that was just inaugurated. Infrastructure and great management is two ways to get ahead.
If you think our federation is funded well you are wrong. It doesn't take a long time to find out about bad situation of financial management in Iranian football. for past 4-5 years we have been griped with shortage of money in all levels from youth, league and NT. Most of our clubs won't pay their players and there are tonnes of complaint against Iranian clubs in fifa. You guys built two or three great Stadiums in couple of years. We just completed one mini scale stadium in Mashhad after 20 years! All of our stadiums are old and incomplete. Even Azadi was build in 1973! You guys may understand the corruption in football now because your football federation is similar to us. There are more than 50 cases of Iranian clubs not paying the contract to foreign players in fifa at this moment and our sport ministry has stopped paying for major clubs. Majority of Iranian players won't get their money at end of each season. If they are lucky they will get 50% of their contracts but they don't have a legal way to complain about Iranian clubs either. Next year many Iranian major clubs should pay millions of dollars for not paid contracts and fines or face point reduction and relegation to lower tier leagues. (you guys obviously don't know about our situation.) Whoever is playing in Europe or QSL is making money the rest just try live with whatever little money they can get once in a while from the club sponsors. If you think that is the right setting for Asian top ranked team then you are more than welcome to follow our example! The only advantage that we have is relative stability for now. If financial difficulties continue, there won't be any more stability specially with a new presidential election coming in three months, American embargo being imminent and people getting already fed up. Iranian regime has been diverting money to Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS-Alqaeda and rebels so much that we don't have enough money for our own development in sport, health, social services or industry. Anyway you should be familiar with these cases as it is a common problem in our region with dictatorial or chaotic regimes and rampant corruption.
. More reason Iranians and Iraqis can sympathize with each other - we both have shitty FAs and corrupt management that results in wasted opportunities and lost chances, for talented kids on the streets. On a humanitarian level, Iranians should esp. sympathize because Iraq has been desecrated politically by cruel and monstrous wars. We also had/have sanctions, like they did. Really guys - problem is, too much likeness and similarities and this makes us extra competitive and insulting instead of bringing us closer and cheering each other on (when we are not playing each other). Strange logic.
So you are talking about behaviour and respect? What about your Iraqi facebook and twitter mafia trolls who insult and make fun of us? TBH me and many other Iranians supported Iraq at the AC 2007 and we were very happy for you guys but since reading these digusting comments during the AC 2015 from your fellow countrymen I just can't have any sympathy for you anymore.
And I can't believe that you celebrate a win of a meaningless friendly where we hadn't even our full squad. Now talk about obsession!
If they insult I'll be the first one to say something about it, but right now we are (again) defending ourselves against Iranian trolls, and this is going on for years now so maybe you should look at your friends first
Haha this gave me a good laugh! Thanks for that. All I'll say is that any "insults" from Iraqis have only come as a result of Iranians starting it off with their pathetic and embarrassing reaction to their third successive quarter final loss. Iraqi football is in a bad state at the moment so what's wrong with celebrating a morale boosting win? And tbh we're not even celebrating - if you look at the posts, you will see people saying it's only a friendly. And none of us made fun of Iran until the obsessed Iranians came onto this thread, so I don't know how can you say we are obsessed. There's no point repeating myself, you say you don't care about this match so why have you come onto our forum to start discussing it? Clearly you haven't recovered from your quarter final exit yet. Get over it, it was over 2 years ago.
If you talk about bigsoccer you may be right but on Facebook and Twitter I made a different experience. But if you ask me I hate trolls of both sides like Suren. And don't worry I'm already over it. We are used to referee mistakes at ACs. 2015 was not the first time we got robbed. Now we should concentrate on our own groups. I hope this win motivated your players because now you got a difficult task to solve. I would rather see you guys qualify than Saudi Arabia. Good luck to your team!
Javabe inaro nemikhad bedi. Ina farghe shokhi va oghdei boodan ro nemifahman. Khodeshon as farte khosh hali omadan to forum ma sarak keshidan dar hali ke ma aslan baramon mohem ham nabood. inja omadim bahashon khosho besh konim ina fekr kardan ma oomadim bahashon kal kal konim. be har hal vaghte khodeto inja talaf nakon. in ham akharin post man injast. inha janbeye shookhi nadaran.
Are you guys seriously arguing with one another over a practice match in an empty stadiums behind closed doors ? The players, and not to mention the Qataris and Saudis who are reading this, would be laughing at you all.
Who is celebrating anything? lol Obsession is running to iraqi forums to trash our team whenever your team plays against ours. This is our forum and we have the right say whatever we want. Go to your own forums and do whatever.
Ok kids, go to bed now. This goes to both sides. Everyone here who in any way talked shit is should reflect upon their actions. Before anyone goes "But they started it!", I don't care at all. On to the game, I should feel hopeful that we beat a decent team, even if it's not the first team. But I can't find the motivation anymore. Akram Salman, Yahya Alwan and Radhi Shnaishel have killed me. For some reason we're playing 442 and Alaa Abdul Zahra is still playing... Well at least we didn't lose to Iceland.