Prince Ali promised us to lift the ban on Iraq home stadiums.. One thing is for sure.. I would rather have the European guy than Sheikh Salman
I bet Prince Ali supporters gave their support to Infantino in second round. If playing in Iraq means only in Basra stadium with high security, I think it should be Ok for few matches to see how Iraqi FA can handle the matter. You should know your country is involved in civil war with an organization that can pass through thick American and European securities, so it is somehow logical for not letting you to have the home advantage. I am sure Daesh will suffer a major blow this year and hopefully your dream comes true.
Iraq opens its new stadium, Karbala Sports City, in May. IFA requested an international friendly and the coming days FIFA will decide if they will lift the ban (at least partially). Every city is safe enough to host matches, even Baghdad (although I understand why they do not allow us to play there). Hopefully we can lift the ban before the final round.
he said he will raise AFC world cup spots to 6 (he wants a 40 team world cup). this way Iran will make every world cup, but at the same time, we will have teams like north korea/uzbekistan/saudi/uae/qatar making the world cup and embarrassing asia. i am against 40 team world cup. even with a 40 team wc, AFC should not have more than 5 spots. it will also take away the thrill of WC qualifiers because the top 4 know each time they will automatically make it. and there would be no exciting intercontinental playoff involving afc.
Look at the 2014 World Cup results. 4.5 slots for AFC is max. 6 is just too much for this confederation where only the top 4 is making impact.
don't write like Iran is making WC so easily and participating in it every four years, everybody saw how lucky you were during last qualifiers and celebrated it like a crazy, and are you sure that Iran made Asia proud earning only 0-0 draw in Brazil?
How could you know that we make Asia embarrassing, if we have never played in the WCs yet? There is no guarantee that any team make it easy to reach the WCs. Football is developing everywhere, there were always NTs who make their debuts at the WCs, and no doubt that we will see many debuts in the future.
There is no need to fight over this. With 5 spots there are enough space for everyone. What the other guy meant, was the performance of Saudi Arabia losing 8-0 and alike. Beside the usual four only Uzbekistan is strong enough to have a decent run in WC at the moment. If everyone waits for next round of qualifiers, we will see the level of each team, so people should be patient.
Maybe focus more on beating Jordan than constantly whining, eh? I doubt you'd make the cut even with 6 slots son.
even when we dont make it we are extremely close to making it, which is why it is not unreasonable to claim that with 6 spots we are virtually guaranteed to make it every time. for us to not make it, not one but three non-top 4 teams have to finish ahead of us. this would be extremely rare. plus, of the 4 times we made it, 3 of those times we were the best asian team. in terms of uzbekistan, trust me i like you guys and you play good football. however, surely you agree that for whatever reason, uzbekistan almost always chokes at the important stages. maybe you are emotionally weak like us Iranians. we are different than for example arabs and chinese... they dont have talent but they are ruthless and never let emotion get in the way. trust me i am almost as eager as you to see uzbekistan achieve something because they deserve it. but they always choke when it comes down to it. that is why even if they make it to the wc i wont be surprised if something like this happens: they will play good against a world class team for the whole game, then concede 4 goals in the last 15 minutes and lose 4-0.
this basically sums up sheikh salmans election campaign: thats what happens when you use money to get involved with things you have no competence for.
come on pussy, there wasn't any chance for us against Uruguay after Jordan, none of Asian teams can beat them, so we played without motivation and lose in penalties, let's wait for the final stage of qualifiers then we'll se who will be out of 4,5 this time, i'm sure we'll take 6 points from two games against Iran
you aren't in top-4, don't deceive yourself if you mean childish FIFA rankings, i'm against 6 slots, because now we're close to make it with 4,5
Yeah, I am not sure too, but just because of the referees We all know that if they didn't steal our 3 points in last WCQ against you, we would make WC instead of you. Anyhow, of course it will be not easy for us to get 6 points against Iran, but will be so hard for Iran to get the same points from us. Iran is not a dangerous team for us nowadays. Maybe, it is because we don't see who could replace legendary Ali Daei (although it passed years since he retired) and Karimi and in addition we also somehow learned to play more better football
We won the match in Uzbekistan with an experimental line up last summer. How do you think we have no chance winning your team again this time around without referee making mistakes? My concern at the moment is our coach staying after IFF election in April. After that I can tell what will happen. I can guarantee with CQ being our coach we have nothing to be worried about. The only serious challenge for us will be Japan in Saitama. South Korea is also dangerous. I respect Uzbekistan as a good team in Asia specially the way you played under Vadim Abramov. Reality is the consistency which most of Asian teams lack. Iran was in this situation in 90s, but a good generation of talented players brought some stability to our football and we showed some consistency ever since. South Korea, Japan and Australia are at top level because they have two important factors, 1. a talented team 2. stability and consistency. Many teams in Asia have the first factor but the second one is rare. Uzbekistan has been always up and down and choke on some occasions. In last WCQs you could qualify if you didn't lose to South Korea. A draw could send you to Brazil but you let that chance slip away. The match in Tehran was ruined by Emirati referee that canceled a true goal of ours. So I don't think it is fair to say anything more about Iran-Uzbekistan WCQs of 2014. We can replace Ali Daei anytime, replacing Karimi is hard admittingly. We are not a team just relying on individual skills anymore, so we can still manage without Karimi in Asia. If we had a player like him our team could compete in higher levels. We have new generation of players right now with different talents. For example Jahanbaksh and Torabi are our future is wings, Ezatollahi takes the DMF and Azmoun fill the FW positions for us. There are 10-12 other serious talents who I am watching them developing at the moment, too. I am not worried about developing talents any more. Stability is the key for us and as long as CQ is around I am not worried. I personally think teams like Oman, Jordan, UAE, and Uzbekistan have talent but lack consistency and if you want to advance to higher levels you need to work on that. Jordan and Uzbekistan can be among top 6 Asian teams by fixing this. Now, we should focus on our own teams instead of arguing who does what. There are 7 months left until next round of qualifiers. We should move quickly and fix all issues in and around the team. Friendly matches with strong teams will show where we stand and how much work need to be done. We may end up in different groups so arguing is useless now.
I don't know about Iranian line-up against our first match, but we played without our 5 main players including our captain who had been sanctioned to play the first match of the last stage by Fifa's dummy decision. And where did I say that Iran has no chance to win? I just ironically answered to your ironic smiles Every team has always a chance to win any other team. We lost the match against Korea because of our own goal, but to be fair Korea was better then us in that match, and there were no any bad calls by referee, except that wrong corner call after which our player scored own goal. So the final score was fair compared to Uz vs Iran match in Tashkent. Anyhow, you right! Let's focus on our teams, and also give some respect to other teams. Time will tell us everything, if we embarrass Asia, if you win or we do. BTW, what does it mean that the fate of CQ will be known after April's election. Doesn't he have a contract with IFF?
I was talking about our last match in Tashkent (2015). He has a contract until 2018. It is the usual conflict with sport ministry mafia. Every 6 months we have this drama with them.
Apparently, Yousef Al Serkal (یوسف السرکال), head of UAE FA was so mad that Sheikh Salman was not elected as the head of Fifa that he let some anger out by calling some Asian football associations as traitors. He think it is a gang and all members should pay loyalties to AFC head. It is called Fifa election not Fifa selection as it is usual in Persian Gulf Arab Countries (GCC). He is pointing his finger at Eastern Asians in general and few central and western Asian FAs in particular. He even called few Arabs who voted for Infantino as traitors. http://footballitarin.com/link_page.php?id=284069 By the way the source of the news is Al Emirate Al Yum news paper/media. (الإمارات الیوم) Some people look mad! their investment got smoked!