WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

Yeah I was raging about the forced religious insertion into sport but it made for a scarily intimidating atmosphere.

 

sure it's intimidating

 

You are welcome. Yes. It was played on Ashoura.

 

After an initial scare, the latest reports now indicate that Jahanbakhsh's hamstring injury isn't that serious. He might even be able to play next week, but in any case the reports about his condition are encouraging.

 

I recall reading reports that when the score hit 4-0 the commentator no longer said a word but the broadcast continued with just the crowd noise until the final whistle at which point the broadcast cut off and the station returned to political propaganda. Something along those lines.

 

To all the people who here who kept saying if Iran is the best in AFC, why they haven’t won the Asian Cup in such long time etc, assuming that Iran has a fair chance to win anything within an Arab-dominated AFC. Just watch this highlights of Esteghlal, an Iranian club, playing an Arab side on their turf today. Two phantom penalty calls within 5 minutes. The corruption and cheating is so obvious that’s comical. Now do you still seriously expect Iran to win a tournament in AFC having to deal with shit like this? Iran was robbed by AFC referees in similar fashion in 1996, 2004, and 2015 Asian Cups despite being the best team in the tournament. The fact that Iran even manages to qualify to World Cup regularly from this corrupted confederation controlled by Arab Sheikhs, is by itself a miracle and mostly thanks to FIFA being more involved in World Cup Qualifiers and hence less chances of such match-fixings by AFC.

 

Wow. Those were really bad calls. The second one wasn't even close. Such an obvious desperation dive, with the clock winding down.

At least the first penalty was saved, not only once but twice!

So the match ended 2-2, or they went to extra time?

 

Iran’s only viable option has been to form its own “Central Asia” block within AFC to gain some influence to open direct a line of communication with FIFA to at least reduce these cases of match-fixing by the Saudi/Jordanian-led Arab block that controls AFC’s key positions.

But as you can see, it’s not working. The problem is that Iran is just too easy of a target due to the lack of political and/or economical influence within FIFA that likes of Australia, China, Japan and Korea enjoy which makes them somewhat immune from AFC corruption.

For Iran and Iranian clubs, it’s been essentially like playing against 12 players by default in every important match for 40 years now.

It’s ridiculous that as an Iranian fan, I always have to worry about the referee’s actions more than the actions of the opposing team’s players when trying to watch a match. Like today watching this match live, within minutes I knew right away that this referee was trying to fix the match. Like I knew the phantom penalty or a sending off were coming, it wasn’t a matter of if for me, it was just a matter of when. But even then, I still didn’t believe that the guy could be so shameless to do it twice in span of five minutes. It’s got to a point that the only way to win for an Iranian team against an Arab side in AFC, is to win so by such clear margin that leaves no room the referee match-fixing. Otherwise, if you’re an Iranian team playing an Arab team in a close match, forget about winning. How can you win when a dubious red card or a phantom penalty are always on the menu...which brings me to my original point that it’s miraculous that Iran does as well as it does under such harsh reality and circumstances in AFC.

 

Iran doesn't have many realistic options, really. We, as fans, can dream of a day that things would be better and more fair. Until then, we just need to be thankful that while Iran doesn't have much of a voice within the corridors of power and influence in the AFC, whose delegations and members are either outright hostile to Iran or at best lukewarm towards us, we do have fans who will bring the more egregious of these cases to light. That is actually pretty much the only thing that prevents the situation with Iran in the AFC being even worse than it is.

 

FIFA doesnt do anything for us. It is all about money.

The Saudis pull antics to prevent our ACL games being in Iran by claiming its unsafe. Rubbish.

Meanwhile no punishment or claims when this happens.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...sed-of-sexually-harassing-Iranian-teens-.html

In fact, FIFA only started taking our side when Qatar got into fights with Saudi and warmed up to us and is suing them over the home game issue.

This is why I hate playing these nations. The only honorable opponents are from Iraq/Jordan/Palestine. The rest always have a sleeve full of dirty tricks especially Syria/Qatar/Saudi

 

You were kind of doing fine until you somehow threw Syria into this mix. I don't know what you are alluding to when it comes to Syria, as they don't much pull in the AFC and I don't recall them doing anything against us that stands out to me.

 

Also, while Jordan the team doesn’t usually play dirty, Jordanian FA is actually one of the main culprits of the systematic anti-Iranian agenda within AFC. The Jordanian king’s brother and the Bahraini king’s brother, are essentially the puppets of Saudi Arabia and unfortunately one is AFC’s main man in FIFA and the other is AFC’s President.

 

The game ended 2:2 as it was a group stage match. But other such games don't end the same way. Which is what I think Mani was alluding to: the fact that the team with the best statistical record in the Asian Cup -- with the fewest losses, the most wins, the most points per game ratio, the most successive qualifications to the tournament, the most successive qualifications to the quarterfinals, the most appearances in the semifinals -- hasn't won an Asian Cup trophy in so long isn't just coincidence. Sure, we sometimes go beat in close matches, even when we were the better side, but without any controversy. But too often for it to make sense statistically, there are weird calls that ruin important games for Iran.

 

Talking about Bahrain, and to be fair, there was one game -- an exception in the annals of Asian football -- played in the 2004 Asian Cup were a (shia) Bahrain official made calls that favored Iran in a game we played against Oman in the group stage. That guy has never been heard from again, which highlights the difference between a referee getting things wrong in favor of Iran and getting things wrong which hurt Iran. In the AFC, even leaving aside suspicious cases that make you think there is match fixing going on, the other thing is that if a referee is going to err, he better err against us and not in our favor. The latter will see him banished for good.

 

That refereeing in the ACL fixture was really disgraceful. Nobody can just deny that.

It seems each year once or twice Iranian teams in ACL fall victim to these dirty refs.
It is indeed no solitary case.

But I watched several Iran games in qualfying and thankfully there wasn't any robbing. I believe AFC might have realized that they badly need Iran in this World Cup as it's the strongest team in AFC at the moment. Before the draw I tipped Iran as the best bet for an AFC side to go through.
After the draw they are still joint-second with Australia in my book. I just give Japan better chances because they got a pretty navigatable group. That's it for pretty much with the AFC hopes. I really can't see how Saudi Arabia and South Korea could advance.

AFC is one of the confederations that has to deliver this summer. They performed really badly in 2014. They can't afford to have again no team in the Round of 16.

 

Do you remember our Syria match in Malaysia? Only AFC would make us play in that dogchit field an hour after torrential downpour.

In that game Syria wasted at least 45 min of time diving in a waterlogged pitch.

Slight AFC involvement compared to other culprits but after that game I'd gladly never play another Arab team again.

 

Yeah the slots for the next two World Cups are already confirmed. But it's not just about World Cup slots. People point out AFC as the weakest confederation (if we exlude OFC - they are barely a confederation, consisting mostly of tiny islands and even don't have an automatic berth until 2026) and perceive them almost everytime as the weak link in World Cup groups. (Mostly rightfully so)

It's a reputation thing. AFC at least never failed to have a team in the knockout stage in back to back World Cups since 1994. So if this time somehow none of AFC representatives gets through it would mark a step backwards and is no good indicator for the continent with the largest population.

 

yea i know what you mean, same for me with uefa, when people say uefa have to many slots etc etc, i want europe to show that we deserve them!

 

In 2014 there was no AFC team in the second round.

 

Maybe my wording was mistakable.
I mean AFC didn't fail to send at least one team through in two consecutive World Cups since 1994.

94 Saudiarabia through
98 All AFC out
02 Japan and South Korea through
06 All AFC out
10 Japan and South Korea through
14 All AFC out

 

Our match against Syria in Malaysia was ruined by torrential rains that made the field impossible to play, but that had nothing to do with Syria. The reason the match wasn't cancelled was because it was impractical to reschedule a match against Syria when the Syrians couldn't host their own matches and had to rely on venues they had booked in advance elsewhere. So, sure: that was not football; it was mud-ball. But certainly Syria was not at fault for the conditions that existed. Even the AFC was in a terrible bind and their reluctance to cancel the match was somewhat understandable.

I have watched Asian football very closely for many decades. The past 20 years, I have watched practically every match involving Iran and most that involve Iranian clubs in the AFC CL. The matches against Syria have usually been very close and tough games for us, even if in most of them, we have ended up winning by a narrow margin. But I do not recall a single time when the game was decided by any egregious referee errors -- and Syria is the last team in the world that I would suspect of having any clout within the AFC and the last team that would want to use its clout against us! If you have a problem with Syria, it has nothing to do with any of the issue we are discussing.

In fact, while I agree that Iraq has not been guilty of any malfeasance against us either, I find it curious that you fault Syria for something they had no control over but forget that the last time an egregious call went against us was in our quarterfinal match against Iraq in the 2015 Asian Cup. To be sure, as bone-headed and wrong a call that was, the red card to Pouladi against Iraq didn't suggest some conspiracy by Iraq against Iran. That is for sure. Instead, it was either Ben Williams just making a bad call, or it might suggest an inherent bias by Ben Williams against Iran - a bias that is a bit more prevalent against us than others due to circumstances which do not always make Iran a very popular country among many in either the western camp or among the Arab countries either.

While the kind of bias I allude to will affect us adversely quite often, as referees will be influenced by its subconsciously and that is almost unavoidable when you have to make split second decisions that require judgment calls, that is not something we can fix as it is part of some larger issues that go way beyond football. But there are issues within the AFC that need to be brought to light and which we might be able to influence. The fact that the Saudis are able to dictate the venue of our matches without any justifiable ground is one of them. The fact that the Saudis - along with their sidekicks in the UAE and the bloc of countries within the AFC which follow their lead -- have created a poisonous atmosphere that almost encourages errors and prejudice against Iranian teams, players, officials and fans, is also something that should be highlighted.

For instance, how safe and fair is an environment that allows Iranian citizens getting picked up and arrested on bogus charges at whim by the Saudis, the UAE etc, without any repercussions? In the same game which saw the referee call those questionable penalties, 3 fan leaders of Esteghlal's club were arrested and put in jail for nothing that would justify that kind of attitude. I don't know if they have been released even now! This referee who made these almost suspicious calls will probably not be penalized at all for his errors, but if he had done same exact thing in reverse in favor of our team (or even done something less obvious), he would have been banished from the game. That is what happened to the referee that erred in our favor in a group stage match in the 2004 Asian Cup against Oman. This atmosphere against Iran, moreover, isn't created by Syria, Iraq etc. It is created by a bloc of countries which have other issues with Iran. Within the AFC, the biggest culprits are the Saudis and their sidekicks.

 

I agree that none of our qualifying matches were marred by any officiating issues. In fact, I was quite pleased with the officiating involving our games. And I agree about your observation about Iranian teams in the AFC CL. My view on it is as follows:

In general, and more than what would be statistically expected, I believe Iran is hurt by officiating and referee errors. But I don't believe that is, for the most part, because of a plot against us -- and the fact that we weren't prejudiced by it in our qualifiers wasn't probably because of any conscious decision either. Instead, the fact that that we are prejudiced by referee errors more than would be our share is probably due to two factors: first it reflects the implicit biases and prejudices that you would find when the views of Iran around the world aren't very favorable and when relations between Iran and many of the countries were these referees hail from are tense if not non-existent. But obviously not everyone shares such biases and prejudices and thankfully there are plenty of referees that don't exhibit any such bias when doing their jobs.

The other factor, which is a bit more troubling, is in the politicized atmosphere against Iran encouraged by the Saudis, the UAE and their sidekicks within the AFC. This latter issue shows its ugly face mostly when games are divided into west and east Asia camps, such as in the AFC CL. Even when you don't have overt match fixing plots, the general atmosphere that is encouraged is to make sure everyone knows that Iran and Iranian clubs are persona non grata and to be treated that way. Any self-promoting or self-serving referee (and thankfully they are fewer than one would expect) knows that they will gain favor and find themselves better off if they happen to tilt against us -- and that they can forget any careers as referees in the AFC if they do the opposite. Of course, I cannot rule out match fixing and dirty referees from this equation either. Whenever there is money to be made in something, you do have corruption as well.