WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

No body is telling there is something wrong with them. Hell we had two or three key players raised in Europe too. Ashkan Dejagah (raised in Germany) and Reza Gucci (raised in Holland). All the talks are about both Iran and Morocco are not such ideal footballing culture to raise top class footballers. We need our top talents to be raised and developed in Europe to have a chance in top flight footballing careers. So stop bragging about other countries developing our talents. Good for these guys and their right European systems, organizations, planings and clubs developing such players.

I also suggest we listen to this comment by The Special One. Let us enjoy our conversation here and ignore trolls.

 

As long as they have Moroccan blood i dont think we are taking advantage of European youth programs. Their talents are 100% Moroccan blood and dna hahah.

Of course if they were born and raised in Morocco it would be difficult for them to be at the same level like now but it isnt impossible, look at Salah.

I am born and raised on Holland, my father was born in Morocco and my mother in Holland but i feel more Moroccan than Dutch. I am also really proud of players like Adil Rami, Fellaini and Chadli even they didnt choose to represent Morocco.

 

I reported you because of disrespect to the nation of Uzbekistan. But it seems you got lucky. My advice for you.
Watch out what are you saying.

 

we Dont lack homegrown talents ,
Morocco won the CHAN 2018 cup (
players from domestic leagues ), the problem is most of top players choose "gulf leagues" (because of money ) although they got some offers from low -mid europian teams, and Herve renard to prevent that made a statement that he will not call any one who GO there .
a good example is " Ashraf bencharki" he was called before into NT squad , but when he transfered to "al hilal saudi " Herve renard ignored him right away.
the only except is " boussofa " cauz he did play enough time before in eroupe .

 

i dont get why moroccan fans think they are so much better than Iran. just because right now you have some better players doesnt mean that you will perform better as a team. tbh i have not seen anything more special from morocco than Iran lately.

certain folks here sure do like to talk the talk. but now lets see if their team can walk the walk.

 

Bro. What do you know about uzbekstan? It's not a football nation but boxing is the main sport. Have you heard of a little boxer named Gennady Golovkin? He's the top P4P fighter in the world and a huge puncher. That's why I had said this, not to insult the country.

 

In my humble opinion (IMHO):
1- Ignore trolls (or report them)
2- Correct factual misrepresentations
3- Respect differences of opinion
4- Realize that fans will not be totally objective about their own team nor totally fair in their assessment of a rival or opponent
5- Enjoy the game

 

As for what is being debated here, my 2 cents:

1- Iran has not done well in its recent matches and on the strength of our friendlies, and those from Morocco, Morocco looks in better shape.
2- On paper, based on club pedigree, Morocco has a better squad. But most football experts regard those who focus too much on club pedigree alone as being naive and clueless in predicting results. There are studies that support the notion that even the much maligned FIFA or ELO ratings are much better in predicting results than club pedigree and transfer market value. And Iran is the better ranked team compared to Morocco according to both FIFA and ELO.
3- Overall, the outcome of the game between Iran and Morocco IMHO will depend on the tactics and the bounce of the ball more than anything else. I am convinced that if Iran plays the right tactics, Morocco is unlikely to beat Iran and a draw would be the most likely result and an Iranian win the next most likely outcome. However, if Iran chooses to play Morocco using a reckless system, then the game can even end up with Iran being embarrassed.

 

Going by FIFA rankings, Iran and Turkey were ranked similarly or the same. The game would have been considered a toss up, with the fact that the venue is in Turkey giving Turkey a slight edge.

Going by FIFA rankings, Iran was supposed to beat Algeria. And we beat them.

Going by FIFA rankings, Iran was supposed to lose to Tunisia, particularly in Tunisia. And we lost to them.

Going by transfer market value, Iran might have done okay against Tunisia but would have no chance against Algeria or Turkey. The teams they fielded against Iran were both worth several times Iran's team on the transfer market.

You decide which index was more telling: rankings despite their flaws or transfer market value and club pedigree? In the meantime, recall the following ("Naive" baseline referring to picks based on transfer market value):

http://www.sportingintelligence.com...d-cup-winners-almost-nobody-predicted-160701/

 

Golovkin is from Kazakhstan, not Uzbekistan.....From what I know, most of the Asian countries like football.

 

Incidentally, referring to FIFA rankings, they of course change by results. Iran has been consistently to top ranked team in the AFC the past 4 years without exception, but after losing to Turkey (and Australia beating Czech Republic 4:0 in their last friendly), the calculations made are that Iran will for the first time in 4 years drop to 2nd place within the AFC in the rankings behind Australia.

 

So you're making your statement on friendly games ? Why not to tell us about WC 2014 where Algeria trashed South Korea, Ivory Coast beat Japan, Nigeria qualified in a group where you've finished last, Ghana tied Germany...What were the asian teams doing ? They all finished last of their groups.

Asian football is crap, it's a well known fact. The only way for an asian team to reach the WC quarters or further is to organize it home and cheat 3 penaltys per game like South Korea did in 2002. There's simply very little talent in Asia, as I've already mentionned we're still waiting for the asian big players who've marked History, no matter if born there or diaspora products, there are 0.

 

Let you're right about the fact that in terms of players born and raised in Morocco, we might be a little bit (and I insist on little bit) less good than you, so what ? As someone said, we have a talented diaspora in Europe and we decided to give it priority since the 90's, which makes us naturally to focus less on the developpement of players in Morocco. Fact is, in general, we're still a much better country of football than you. We can make 5 or 6 good starting XI of moroccan players who've been playing for good/top clubs in the whole history, you can barely make one. You're talking about Alireza as if he was already a legend while all the guy did is having a good season with AZ. Mounir El Hamdaoui was the best scorer and best player of Eredivisie in 2008/2009 with AZ, right above Luis Suarez. And that was a great team of AZ with Van Gaal being the coach,they finished champions. I did not even mention his name during this debate yet...He played with Ajax after and scored in champions league too against Ac Milan.
Do you have any defender who played for a good/top club in the History ? I'm not even sure in fact, I can't recall any.

We are approximatively 40 millions if counting Morocco + diaspora, you are about 85 millions, and you produce 5x less talented players than us. Moroccans are known all over Europe for being good footballers, in Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, even in Scandinavia, Norway had about 4 bi national moroccan players in its national team few years ago. Who knows about iranian football ? Do you have players in the youth teams of Real, Barca etc. ? We have.

And if you think that relying on diaspora players means being a club or Qatar and is meant to fail, I invite you to check again what Algeria did in 2014 with a team made essentially of diaspora players as well, if you're too lazy to check let me remind you : They scored more goals in a single world cup than you in 4 participations.

 

Anyone can cherry pick results. While I agree that CAF is stronger than the AFC right now, the head-to-head record between CAF and AFC at the World Cup is even. And it became even in 2014, which was a terrible World Cup for the AFC. Before that, the AFC had the edge. The story from the confederations cup is more favorable to the AFC, which has the head-to-head advantage.

Those historical results, however, mean nothing to me. No more than what Algeria did in World Cup 2014. Indeed, even Algeria itself failed to do much after its World Cup success in 2014 and had miserable results thereafter. What matters when Iran face off against Morocco will be:

1- which side employs what prove to be better tactics for that match;
2- which sides commits fewer mistakes
3- which side is better prepared psychologically and physically
4- which side has luck on its side

The factors I mention above will be a lot more important than anything else that has been debated here. More important than club pedigree, past World Cup record, the record of AFC against CAF, FIFA, ELO or any other ranking, or certainly transfer market value!

At the moment, despite wanting to be proven wrong, I give Morocco the edge against Iran. I am a bit concerned about the state of mind, state of preparations, the tactics, and surrounding issues, when it comes to Iran. But even a messed up Iran side, with a bit of luck, the right bounce of the ball, and players who show up to play their best, will be able to beat Morocco. That I am sure. Whether they will or not, remains to be seen.

 

This should not be a surprise, my friend.

 

IMO I would rate most of the Iranian posters on here as "optimistic" nothing wrong with that, a defeatist atitude is not going to get you anywhere. I would go for a 20% chance of qualifing, going on history, the recent results and what some of the Iranian supports have said.

 

This says more about the economic situation of Morocco and its football association compared to Europe than anything else. Portugal has a long history of having foreign born players, I was born in South África, Eusébio in Mozambique, Carvalho in Angola, Danny in Venezuela, Cédric in Germany...true we have had plenty of Home born talent but if we swap Morocco with Portugal (i.e. if Portugal was North African) maybe we would have the Same results. Due to history, politics and the geographic location of Iran their players are mostly Home grown but in Moroccos shoes maybe the results would be largely the Same?

 

The problem of some iranian posters is not about optimism, it's that they try to place their team as equal or superior to Morocco just because some stupid prediction websites put Iran above Morocco (mainly because of FIFA rankings, market value, and stuff like this).

Fact is :
- Morocco has surely AND has always had a better squad than Iran
- Morocco has a way better WC history than Iran
- Morocco has better results than Iran this year

This should be enough to consider the gap between Morocco and Iran as almost as big as the one between Morocco and Portugal. And while it would be normal to see moroccan posters being optimistic about Morocco beating Portugal, which is quite possible, just like Iran beating Morocco in fact, nobody would say that Morocco has got as many talented players as Portugal, or that the odds are 50/50 before the game starts ...

Something that seems to make people to underate Morocco is the fact the team has not qualified for the last 4 world cups. I made the comparison with Belgium earlier. Belgium missed every single tournament between 2002 and 2014, Euro + world cups, 5 big competitions in a row. When they came back in 2014, some people did not want to take them seriously because of this, even if they had a strong team on the paper. People were putting South Korea above them just because South Korea was considered to be a regular team with more WC experience. The result is that Belgium beat South Korea and proved to be a much better team.


Just look at the predictions the iranian guys post, they all see Iran finishing above Morocco, except Iranian Monitor who gives the edge to Morocco (was not the case months ago). I don't see many moroccan posters thinking that Morocco will finish above Portugal.

In this case I cannot call this optimism, it is more like disrespect to a team that is clearly superior to theirs.

 

Morocco is by no means "clearly superior to Iran". At least, not in my estimation of them. They are doing better than Iran right now and have had a spell of results since Sept 2017 which suggests they have formed a pretty decent squad and they have done better than Iran recently, which has shown signs it has declined compared to its top form in the 2016-2017 period.

In any case, while I give the edge to Morocco right now, it is by no means because of any of the facts (nor some of the factoids and falsehoods) claimed by some of the posters here. It is mostly because I am not happy with some of the decisions being made about our team recently-- and how we played executing these selections and tactics.

In the meantime, a team is that is clearly superior would not rank way below an inferior squad by ELO and FIFA. Those rankings, as imperfect as they are, reflect results by teams and are far more reliable than self-proclaimed superiority. They reflect results more germane and relevant than what Morocco did at the World Cup in 1986 or in 1998 -- which was the last time they had qualified to the World Cup.

Anyway, in two weeks time, we will see if Morocco is clearly better, better at all, equal or worse than Iran. This issue will become even clearer after all the group stage games are played. Until then, posters here who feel they have a better team than they are credited with having should learn patience and tolerance of opposing views.

 

Incidentally, as someone who was a regular poster here at the time of World Cup 2014, let me assure you that the posters who most consistently underrated Algeria were CAF fans! Algeria was, indeed, rated even below South Korea by pundits but it was ranked by FIFA quite well (I think they were the topped ranked CAF team according to FIFA but had a poor ELO ranking). They were kind of like Tunisia in that regard.

 

I would say that most neutrals have this:

Spain
Portugal
Morocco
Iran

This is what I want:

Portugal
Morocco
Iran
Spain

Obviously there is a huge difference in probability between the first and the second, especially with Spain last, which is quite frankly mildy delusional. Now Morroco finishing last or Portugal first is much more likely. I do not claim to know much about Iranian or Moroccan football, I know basically next to nothing. Maybe the claim that Iranian posters are disrespecting Morocco is viable but if some sites have put Iran above Morocco it is not that improbable, that is my ill formed opinion, I have Morocco above Iran.

I have to not seen Portuguese supporters here saying confidently that we Will finish above Spain, we are quietly confident and thats the way I like it. I have not read the 138 pages of comments but from what I have read the Moroccan supporters have not been displaying undue optimism.

 

At the start of 2018, I would have rated Iran slightly above Morocco but at around the same level. Since then, I have seen evidence to suggest that Morocco is good and its spell of results between Sept - Nov 2017 were no fluke, while I have also seen Iran begin to show a lot of dents in its armor. During the same time, some of the websites (Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, Bleacher's Report etc) which had ranked Iran above Morocco right after the World Cup draw have also adjusted their ranking of Morocco up and Iran down. Most now have Morocco above Iran.

 

Among the CAF teams, the ones that have seen their ranking among pundits improve the most have been Tunisia and Morocco. Senegal is the side that, despite a lot of talent on paper, hasn't shown itself that convincing in its friendlies and has seen some of the enthusiasm surrounding their side wane. But, of course, no one will can be sure which side ultimately does well or poorly at the World Cup. That is why they play the game!

 

OMG guys. We had these conversations 1000 times 6 months ago.

 

Poor argument. Most transfer market values place Morocco over Iran. If Iran was a colony of a European country we would have more legionnaires. We face down the barrel of sanctions, are left to our own devices, not given access to the elite of european football programs for free.

In fact, its people thinking club names determine pedigree 100% with no exceptions.

Nigerian fans made this same argument 4 yrs ago and their team of Newcastle/Chelsea/Stoke city players were shut down by Perspolis and Esteghlal players.

Or vs Argentina an Esteghlal CB playing out of position at RB shut down Di Maria (which no one in Ligue 1 can do).

Watching the Morocco Ukraine game and saw some good buildup play and pressing.

Also saw very poor clinical finishing in the final 1/3rd. Makes me think if we go 1-0 up CQ is about to park a tank and the game will end thay way just like it did with South Korea aimlessly passing around the last 5-6years we have played them.

The real disrespect is treating Iran like its Tahiti. Dont expect to see our players afford extra respect to any team or player.