WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

Lol, first of all Morocco also has some players in Asia, in the gulf leagues, mainly pre retired players, or young promising players who couldn't find good clubs in Europe.
Second the moroccan league is pretty decent if not judging by european standards, Raja Casablanca won the african champions league few years ago and reached the world cup clubs finale, losing against Bayern Munchen 2-0.

Morocco did a great run in WC 1986, with most of the players playing in the moroccan league. Iran only had shitty runs in WC participations, so you're probably the one that can be compared to Syria.

Plus I don't even see the point to mention that we have so many players formed in Europe, so what ? You want to start a political debate or what's the point exactly ? They will be on the field anyway, so when judging Morocco vs Iran squads, we are obliged to consider them.

The fact is : Morocco is a country of football, with an history linked to France and Spain, football started really early in Morocco. One of the first best french players at the beginning of the 20th century was moroccan : Larbi Ben Barek.

Iran on another hand is not a country of football, for sure not as much as Morocco. You also have diasporas in Europe but they don't produce any good players, simply because your people are less interested in football and less talented than the moroccan ones. And this is also the case for any asian team compared to the african ones, who are the biggest asian footballers who've ever played in Europe ? Nakata, Park, Karimi ? Lol where are the Drogba's, Etoo's of Asia ? I won't even speak about the players with african roots who decided to play for european nations, like Zidane...

 

Dude, your tournament prep has consisted of being thrashed by Turkey (didn't qualify for WC), losing to handily to Tunisia (barely qualified), barely beating the Algeria B team (Algeria A were thrashed in African qualifying) and finally beating Uzbekstan 1-0.
Do you understand why a fan of Portugal or Spain could find it mildly irritating how Iranian fans keep posting about there "realistic" chance of getting out of the group. This reeks of incredible hubris.
Lets just say the final result will tell all.
I watched around the first 20 minutes of the Turkey - Iran game and saw a team that should have been down 3-0 in the first little bit of the match.
Regardless the results will tell all, maybe your team can prove the naysayers wrong.

 

It is a pretty inflammatory self praising post.

Just to point one thing. Only sub Saharan African players except Salah, are exceptionally good footballers in Europe. Arab/Berber footballer raised in north Africa are not that great. ZZ was born and raised in France. That means football culture is not special in North Africa same goes for West Asia. Biggest Iranian home grown talents were Ali Karimi (Bayern) , Ali Daei (Bayern), Mehdi Mahdavikia (Hamburger SV), Vahid Hashemian (Bayern), Javad Nekounam (Osasuna) and recently Azmoun/Jahanbakhsh.

Iranian diaspora are usually well educated / business oriented and less athletic oriented, we still got Ashkan Dejagah (former German U21 and Wolfsburg player) and a couple more decent diaspora players at the same level of Morocco. I really don't see anything special about both countries. Do you see any specially good player in both team? Benatia or Ziyech are the ceiling level for Moroccan players.

In brief: Morocco or Iran are not ideal countries for football stars to grow up.

 

You got reported my friend.

 

Daei and Karimi played like 30 games for Bayern, and did not even start half I guess (did not check). It is like comparing them with Chamakh who played for Arsenal or Afellay for Barcelona or Boulahrouz for Chelsea (if we count diaspora).
We do have players of moroccan descent who had better career and played longer with good clubs : Benatia, Fellaini, Rami...

While I'd agree to say that we are not at the level of Algeria, who s got Zidane and Benzema or even Nasri who had a pretty nice career after all, no doubt we're above Iran.

 

Ali Karimi played only 42 matches for Bayern because he got a nasty knee injury. Most of his matches he was among starting line up playing with Oliver Kahn, Micheal Ballack, Diesler, Lizarazu, Philip Lahm, Hargreaves, Fink, Scheweinsteiger, Mehmet Scholl and Roy Makaay. Being always in starting line up with a team packed with stars shows the level of Ali Karimi by itself specially if the coach was a tough bastard, Felix Magath. So your comparison is borderline trolling.

Are you even Moroccan fan?

 

You are at your first World Cup in 20 years, lol. And then you have the nerve to call Iranian fans delusional...

 

Why can’t we all just be friends

 

Some of the Portuguese and Moroccan posters are showing they are as thin skinned as the worst of Iranian posters.

 

If you take away players who were either born or raised in France, Holland or Spain, what home-grown talent has Morocco ever produced who was above the level of Ali Daei, Mehdi Mahdavikia, Ali Karimi or even Alireza Jahanbakhsh or Sardar Azmoun all of whom were born and raised in Iran? I mean come on, you talk about superior atheltes and talents as if Morocco is some sort of sporting powerhouse. All 22 Arab countries combined, don’t do as well as Iran in Olympics and sports in general. If you want to talk about who has “footballing talent”, go watch the highlights of Iran-Morocco from last year’s Futsal World Cup.

 

Don't be silly. Most of the uneasiness is coming from iranian posters over ambitious hopes that Iran will somehow do damage this world Cup when they got demolished the last time around and haven't done anything since

A little humility please

 

that would have been a relevant point if we were playing in the same continent.

 

What are you taking about? What team doesn’t have “ambitious hopes” ? There is not a single Iranian fan here who has ever claimed that Iran is somehow a favourite in this group or will “do damage”. Spain and Portugal are clearly the favourites, and Morocco Is a slightly better team than Iran on paper. But that doesn’t mean Iran has no hope or chance. All the objective predictions and simulations give Iran a 22%-30% chance of advancing. So the uneasiness comes from those delusional trolls who pretend that Iran is Panama and has no chance at all and that somehow Morocco is on a different level than Iran, with no objective data to back up such assertions with.

 

I don't know much about other sports, but don't bring Iran next to Morocco in soccer, that's all. We qualified for the second round in 1986, we got screwed but should have qualified for the second round as well in 1998, beating Scotland 3-0, your nation has never done anything concrete.

About talent, it's not even comparable neither, now, 20 years ago or 35 years ago, we always had better players. You only have a few and everybody knows about them, and none of them had a great career. Take your Ali Daei, big legend, he scored 12 goals in 85 Bundesliga games, cool, El Arabi got better stats in La Liga as a striker...

Most of the players of the 1986 and 1998 generation were born and raised in Morocco, some had pretty nice career like Naybet, Mustapha Hadji, both played for La Coruna when the team was doing good, end 90's.

 

The fact many Moroccans are raised in Europe makes it less worth it for European teams to go look for Moroccans in Morocco who will need to adapt, so even if I mention good players raised in Morocco you wouldn't know them. But the current African Champions League champion is a Moroccan club (Wydad Casablanca) who beated Al Ahly of Cairo in the final (Al Ahly's starting 11 is made of NT players from Egypt, Tunisia and Nigeria). And the current African Championship Champion (Africa Cup of Nations with NT based on local players only) is Morocco who started the tournament with a 4 - 0 win and ended it with a 4 - 0 win to Nigeria.
before having such a wide generation of players raised in Europe Morocco used to export players such as Zaki, Bouderbala, Nader, Hadrioui, Naybet, Bassir, Chippo, Tahar...
Also Futsal isn't developed in Morocco, as it is in Iran. You could also compare beach soccer NT's if you want but it won't be not a more relevant point.

PS : I'm not saying we're better than you, Iran is a respectable team and their fans have every right to expect a win against us, if they're not expecting a victory against Morocco what would they expect against Portugal and Spain and why would they watch the world cup ?

 

Again, list the names of Morocco-born and raised players who were the top assist leader of Bundesliga for 3 seasons in a row, like Mehdi Mahdavikia was...who played for one of the top clubs in the world, Bayern Munich, like Daei, Karimi and Hashmian did. ..who scored 46 goals in Bundesliga, like Vahid Hashemian did...who is the all-time international goal scorer like Ali Daei is... who became the top scorer of a famous European League like Alireza Jahanbakhsh has...who have scored 6 goals in the Champions League like Sardar Azmoun has...

Come on. Name them.

 

You a perfect example. In one post belittling the importance of Portugals friendlies, then going at Morocco for their tie with Ukraine.

Thin. Skinned.

 

In all honesty though it rarely starts with Moroccan and Portuguese fans. You guys have some serious agitators and i have never seen a more mature Iranian fan talk to them or put them back in their place. That's what i would do if a Moroccan fan was acting crazy.

 

And they would stop?

I have seen lots of Moroccan fans join iranian fb groups to trashtalk. I dont expect YOU to control them.

 

I'm only talking about this thread.

 

i think the last encounter between Morocco-Iran was back in 90s .
when "Wydad Casablanca" beat "Pas Tehran" ( 2-0 on agg ).
(Afro-Asian cup final)

 

You're insane

You are the one that came to our euro thread to talk shit about not deserving the euro

What does Iran deserve based on its success in world cups?

 

We've tried to "self police" in past WCs. Turns out some people are trolls no matter what you say.

Exhibition A-

gfx_bq1--- spending ALL his time trashing Iran. Has spent no time offering any useful thought or analysis. Uses words like "thrash" to describe losses by a goal. Then characterizes his teams tie to the same team as "unlucky not a true reflection"..._yada yada yada. Tried comparing Iran and Canada fookin lmaoooooooooooo. At best he could line up a job at FOXNEWS for borderline propaganda.

Then you got good old Artie and his analysis of Ukraine-Morocco. Then states his teams friendly results dont matter.

Call them like I see them but if you want a press release from Iranian posters of Bigsoccer...

"No one here claimed we are the favorites of the group. On paper, our players do not appear to be as prestigious as the other three, but they will be ready to fight, claw, inch their way to upsets. Anyone who believes their team should give up before a whistle is blown does not deserve to follow this sport. Good luck to you all.

 

Quote me. The discussion was about "looking at the stats" of the games in Portugals group versus their results. If Portugal tied Hungary, they tied Hungary. Doesnt matter how many shots/possession/or otherwise. Same thing applies to Iran tying a minnow.

P.s. I actually thought Portugal did well to neuter Croatia/France later on. Thats called reactive football which CQ is lauded for teaching our team to do. You have me confused with someone else

 

You are right, I did confuse you with someone else. I apologize and retract my previous statement regarding your sanity