WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

Benatia said yesterday in an interview that they should focus on the first match against Iran because it's the key of qualification. Interesting how this match is looking like a final for both teams.

 

You have a short memory. Watch the Syria-Iran game again.

Syria wasted at least 35 minutes of the game grassrolling. It was such a masterful performance Saudi Arabia was put to shame.

Then that RB of theirs(Shibli?) Almost broke our players legs and then flopped around to avoid punishment.

I dont fault Iraq for that game as they took advantage of the opportunity..the whole Ala Al Zawra doping thing aside. If any of Morocco/Spain/Portugal get a red card against us(even if called incorrectly) I expect our team to punish them for it not play nicely out of pity

 

Dude, you’re missing IM’s point. Syria the national team maybe one of the dirtiest teams in Asia on the pitch, and same goes with Lebanon. There are even individual players on both Lebonan and Syria, who were in the past bribed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia and sabotaged their own national teams. One such Lebanese player is now serving a life-long ban by the Lebanese FA. But neither Syria, nor Lebanon, nor Iraq , have the political intentions or any influence whatsoever in AFC, to conspire against Iran. The countries that actively sabotage Iran in AFC are the Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar (Qataris to a lesser degree now because of their dispute with Saudis). You also have smaller less significant national federations that are in the pockets of Saudis and co, such as Yemen, Bangladesh, Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Pakistan, Palastine and together they all form a majority voting block in AFC and control all the key positions within AFC to push their agenda.

 

So sad to see geopolitcs that's happening around the world now is also affecting the world of sports, in this case football. Specially what Iran is experiencing now with the Saudi case.

They really are desperate these gulf countries in the race of bulding themself up as the new Middle East super power and they rally want Iran to fail in all cases, including football.

...

 

World Soccer's recent review of the teams in Group B:

2018 World Cup Guide: Group B: Portugal
2018 World Cup Guide: Group B: Spain
2018 World Cup Guide: Group B: Iran
2018 World Cup Guide: Group B: Morocco

 

What is our approach ? We cant hurt them legally.

The only way is to beat them on the pitch and gloat in their face like Taremi did.

I am a fan of direct collected and composed football. No BS.

Thats why I respect Japan the most in Asia... thats why players like Neymar and Suarez will never be as good as Messi/Lewandowski to me.

Any team that practices this gamesmanship can go f itself.

One of my favorite things about CQ is how he approaches Arab teams. Its almost like he taunts them "You guys have billions of invested money, dragged world famous coaches to your countries now prove you are any better and try to score on us" See how trolled Qatar has been the last 5 years.

 

Strange, it says it was published March the 5th yet some info is behind.

Only looked at Portugal, but they said the concern is the young players for Portugal starting for their club teams. The problem is they have J.Mario listed with Inter when he is now with West Ham and is starting. They have B.Silva as not starting when fact he has been starting every game for the last 6 weeks or so, and on top of that he is picking up a assist or goal in basically every match. However the concern is still there for A.Silva.

So wondering what mistakes they might have made for the other teams before I read them. Overall though, it was a pretty good breakdown.

 

I noticed the report on Iran also appearing more dated than the publication date as well. For me, the section that dealt with the highlights of Iran's qualification campaign was flawless but the player section wasn't entirely up to date.

 

The info about Boufal is wrong.

 

Iran's roster will ultimately be chosen from something like the following list of domestic and foreign based players. Indeed, the 33 players that Iran is supposed to first report to FIFA will probably be something along the following lines. The players in bold are the ones I expect to make the final cut. I have not included Iran's captain, Dejagah, to make the final cut because the reports I read suggest he may not recover from his injury in time for the World Cup.

It will be interesting to compare Iran's final roster with the list I have below.

1- A.R. Beiranvand (GK), Persepolis, Iran.
2- V. Ghafoori, Esteghlal, Iran.
3- J. Hosseini, Persepolis, Iran.
4- M. Pouraliganji, Al Sadd, Qatar.
5- M. Mohammadi, Ashmat Grozny, Russia.
6- S. Ezatolahi*, Amkar Perm, Russia.
7- E. Haj Safaie, Olympiacos, Greece.
8- A.R. Jahanbakhsh, AZ Alkaamar, Holland.
9- A. Dejagah**, Nottingham Forrest, England.
10- M. Taremi, Al Gharafah, Qatar.
11- S. Azmoun, Rubin Kazan, Russia.
12- H. Hosseini (GK), Esteghlal, Iran.
13- R. Rezaeian, Ostende, Belgium.
14- P. Montazeri, Esteghlal, Iran.
15- M. Ansari, Persepolis, Iran.
16- O. Ebrahimi, Esteghlal Iran.
17- R. Cheshmi, Esteghlal, Iran.
18- A. Karimi, Sepahan, Iran.
19- M. Shojaie, AEK Athens.
20- S. Ghoddos, Östersunds, Sweden.
21- K. Ansarifard, Olympiacos, Greece.
22- V. Amiri, Persepolis, Iran.
23- M.R. Mazaheri (GK), Zobe Ahan, Iran.
24- M. Hosseini, Esteghlal, Iran.
25- S. Aghaie, Sepahan, Iran.
26- S. Rafaie, Al Khor, Qatar.
27- D. Shojaeian, Esteghlal, Iran.
28- Reza Ghoochanejad, Henerveen, Holland.
29- Kaveh Rezaei, Charleroi, Belgium.
30- A.Alipour, Persepolis, Iran.
31- M. Torabi, Saipa, Iran.
32- H. Lak (GK), Foolad, Iran.
33. A. R. Haghighi (GK), free agent.
--------------------------------------------------
* red card suspension for the opening game against Morocco
** injured and questionable to recover in time for the World Cup

 

If my list above turns out to be correctly, Iran's final 23 man roster will have 12 foreign based players and 11 players from the Iranian league divided between Esteghlal (5), Persepolis (4) and Sepahan and ZobeAhan each with 1 player.

 

I also don't understand their comment about El Ahmadi being "potentially past his sell date" lol. The dude is captain of Feyenoord (Dutch league champions) and considered the 2016/2017 Eredivisie player of the year by most Dutch football analysts. Their only argument is that he is 32 years old. No other supporting information was provided to back that theory.. The standards in sports journalism nowadays....

 

What is interesting is in their little poll Portugal tops the list with 46% of who the team to beat is.. while Iran is at the bottom with 6%. lol. i dont think this is that inaccurate.

 

He's been pretty crap this season. Very lacking in leadership qualities and during their poor stretch of matches (Sept - Nov) he was making many errors. He has been a little better this year. Still, excited to see him at the World Cup!

 

Iran has arranged to play a friendly on a non-fifa match day (March 17) against Sierra Leone. According to the head of the Iranian football federation, Taj, none of Iran's foreign based players nor Iran's players who play for Iranian clubs in the AFC CL will be available for the match, which means pretty much all of the players I listed from our likely 23 man roster will be absent. The game will be an opportunity for lesser known players to grab any remaining roster spots.

 

I watched parts of the 2nd half between Ajax and Heerenveen. Iran's Ghoochanejad, who has won back his place in the starting line up for Herenveen starting the 6-7 matches and scoring quite a few goals (6 goals so far), had a quiet match and didn't get much service during the time I saw. He was taken out when the score was 2:1 later in the 2nd half. Ziyesh had a lovely assist for Ajax's third goal in the 88th minute. I didn't watch the last few minutes, but Ajax scored their 4th goal in injury time to win 4:1.

 

If Alireza Jahanbakhsh's, who suffered a hamstring injury last week, is fit to play, we will get to see Jahanbakhsh and AZ Alkaamar against El Ahmadi's Feyernood in a few minutes. Jahanbakhsh has had a wonderful season so far with 12 goals and 8 assists and has been one of the very best players in the Eredivisie by all accounts. Hope he is fit and ready to play today, but more importantly, I hope he has already recovered from the hamstring injury (that produced a bit of score among AZ's coach and Iranian fans) since subsequent reports indicated the injury wasn't as bad as initially thought.

 

Jahanbakhsh is starting so he must be alright. My internet connection isn't perfect so I haven't noticed if El Ahmadi is playing.
p.s.
El Ahmadi is playing but Feyernood's defense has been crap. A clear penalty denied to AZ and Jahanbakhsh instead gets a yellow for protesting! Earlier, Feyernood did have a good chance to score but their defense has been very suspect so far, which doesn't speak well for El Ahmadi (their d-mid) either.
p.s.s
Feyernood scores on a give away. 1:0.

First time I am really watching the Eredivisie in a long time and I must say defenses are crap.

 

Feyernood won 2:1. Jahanbakhsh wasn't his usual self and this was a subpar game for him by his standards, even though he still had his moments. As I got to see more of El Ahmadi, he looked alright and seemed adventurous moving up.

Better day for the Moroccan players and certainly their clubs than the Iranian players. But I was happy enough seeing Jahanbakhsh fit enough to start as last week some reports suggested his injury might get him sidelines for up to 4 weeks or more.

 

Are you guys playing three games in March? Is it 100% confirmed? So it's Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia?

You are gonna have an overdose of North African teams haha

 

Libya match is cancelled, replaced by Sierra Leone, which I don't know anything about. Our significant games will be against Tunisia and Algeria in March, followed by Turkey and Greece later in May. Since the Sierra Leone match will be on a non-FIFA match day and is close to the games in the AFC CL as well, Iran will be playing without any of its foreign based players or any of the players in the clubs like Persepolis and Esteghlal who play in the AFC CL. So that game will be rather meaningless, with Iran missing practically every player that would be even in a 33 player initial roster and will not feature any of our first choice or second choice players. But since Sierra Leone apparently doesn't have a functioning league, and will presumably also not be able to field their foreign based players, I am not sure what purpose the game will serve?

 

Yea Sierra Leone didn't even participate in the group stage of the Africa WC qualifiers. Maybe Quieroz wants to try some new players..

On another note, it's nice to see that both El Ahmadi and Labyad are back from their injuries. Labyad is having a good season and scored 12 goals in Eredivisie so far. I think that Renard might call him for the March friendlies.

 

While Labyad has good reviews, he also plays in positions where Morocco is loaded with good players. What Morocco lacks is a good target forward and I don't know anything about your goalies either. In most other positions, Morocco seems to have enough good players, although I am curious if you have a reliable backup for the d-mid post that El Ahmadi plays?

 

Morocco's friendlies interest me almost as much as Iran's, in part because I am truly curious to see how capable Morocco prove to be in their upcoming games. For me, the combination of Serbia and Uzbekistan will be revealing, not so much to judge how Morocco will do against the likes of Spain or Portugal, but how they might fare against Iran.

 

Well, the number one goalie for Morocco is clearly Bono. He's playing a very good season with Girona.
As for striker the situation is actualy much better than the last years. We have Azaro, Elkaabi and Boutaib, who all are playing a decent season.
Ait Benasser or Saiss could play Elahmadis position. But Elahmadi usualy plays much better in the national team.