Football 2018 Discussion Thread

[crovitlaci 177]

 

 

[LDOG 2,418]

"Goal of the season" yeah no, just one more nice volley.

[thepharoah 2,405]

 Neil Etheridge goalkeeper of Cardif City will play only the opening match of his NT philippines with Korea in the Asian Cup 2019 and then he'll return back to his team 

[MHSN 3,632]

41 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

 Neil Etheridge goalkeeper of Cardif City will play only the opening match of his NT philippines with Korea in the Asian Cup 2019 and then he'll return back to his team 

 

That's really funny but not surprising, following Philippines basketball for a while, such funny things happen for them, they will probably lose that match no matter what, if he wanted to really help he should play against China or KGZ. I think most of Philippines players didn't born there, they just found them later in other countries when they started to take football seriously.

 

while I still think expending the tournament to 24 teams was a mistake (just not a good idea for AFC) but at least that's fun to see some new teams like Philippines, KGZ, Vietnam and Yemen.

[thepharoah 2,405]

1 hour ago, MHSN said:

 

That's really funny but not surprising, following Philippines basketball for a while, such funny things happen for them, they will probably lose that match no matter what, if he wanted to really help he should play against China or KGZ. I think most of Philippines players didn't born there, they just found them later in other countries when they started to take football seriously.

 

while I still think expending the tournament to 24 teams was a mistake (just not a good idea for AFC) but at least that's fun to see some new teams like Philippines, KGZ, Vietnam and Yemen.

 

indeed  , too funny story , but maybe its the player choice to do so , thanks God CAF changed the timing of CAN and made it in summer , otherwise we would have seen a lot of stars missing in the next tournament . having 24 teams in Asia isn't anyhow a good idea , already in a tournament of 16 there were some punchbags especially those qualified from challenge cup , good to see new teams as u mentioned , u can add Lebanon to the list , but they won't add something new for the tournament IMO , anyway im looking forward to seeing next tournament it should be one of the most open Asian cups in history , maybe Japan is the one to beat here , but there's strong Iran , strong Korea , always good Australia , KSA is back on track , UAE is very dangerous at home , some underdogs like Syria , Uzbekistan and China , maybe Qatar can do something special here , so i hope to see many knockout rounds matches 

[MHSN 3,632]

14 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

 

indeed  , too funny story , but maybe its the player choice to do so , thanks God CAF changed the timing of CAN and made it in summer , otherwise we would have seen a lot of stars missing in the next tournament . having 24 teams in Asia isn't anyhow a good idea , already in a tournament of 16 there were some punchbags especially those qualified from challenge cup , good to see new teams as u mentioned , u can add Lebanon to the list , but they won't add something new for the tournament IMO , anyway im looking forward to seeing next tournament it should be one of the most open Asian cups in history , maybe Japan is the one to beat here , but there's strong Iran , strong Korea , always good Australia , KSA is back on track , UAE is very dangerous at home , some underdogs like Syria , Uzbekistan and China , maybe Qatar can do something special here , so i hope to see many knockout rounds matches 

 

Yeah but they are stupid to accept such thing. interestingly they have a very experienced coach in Sven Goran Eriksson. even though he just took that job recently. he probably only cares about the money they are going to pay him

 

AFC doesn't have a fixed time. UAE (ans Australia in 2015) hosted it in January only because of weather situation (the same reason for Qatar World Cup) hopefully the next AFC Cup will be in summer. beside that having this competition only 6 months after the World Cup is not a good idea at all.

 

I didn't name Lebanon because they are not just new for us we played them several times recently. but yeah those teams will be weak but at least in this sport there are always chances for underdogs to surprise 1 or 2 teams. but of course I don't expect a surprising winner. that will be one of those top 5 teams plus UAE which I agree is very dangerous. looking at the brackets it's very important for Iran to win the group, because our group's runner-up will get Saudi Arabia in round of 16 (assuming they will win their group which won't be easy for them) KSA is the last team I want to face. not because they are very good but because of the rivalries and things usually get out of hands in Iran-KSA matches. if all big teams win their groups and no surprise happens, we will have JPN-AUS and also KOR-KSA in quarterfinals.

 

but the situation doesn't look good for Iran, as usual our enemy is ourselves, the whole story will be boring but there is a verbal fight in past few months between Carlos Queiroz and the Croat guy Branko Ivankovic (former Iran NT coach and current coach of Persepolis the most popular club in Iran) and Ivankovic managed to put almost all Persepolis fans against the national team. also for some reasons almost the whole "football comunity" and most of the media here are against Queiroz. he is now something like "public enemy number 1" here. because of Queiroz's personality people either love him or hate him. also his recent interview saying " Undoubtedly, our dream is to reach to the final four. Defending champion Australia, Japan and South Korea will most likely qualify for the semifinals and Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and China have to fight to advance to the semis as the fourth team " made it much much worse. I know as a coach he just wanted to lower the expectations but the "football community" here considered it as a huge offense to the history of our football. now everybody here thinks anything else than winning the Cup will be a disaster !! which is stupid because the last time Iran won the Cup was 43 years ago ! yeah we were close so many times. we lost so many times on penalties or by bad referee decisions but still "43 years" is a lot.

 

beside that most of our Euro based players are injured and not in good shape. even though it seems they won't miss the competition but you know (specially based on Mo Salah's experience in Russia) that if you are still injured you can't play well no matter how good you are. but we have two not-that-hard matches at the start. we have time for them to recover fully.

[thepharoah 2,405]

1 hour ago, MHSN said:

 

Yeah but they are stupid to accept such thing. interestingly they have a very experienced coach in Sven Goran Eriksson. even though he just took that job recently. he probably only cares about the money they are going to pay him

 

AFC doesn't have a fixed time. UAE (ans Australia in 2015) hosted it in January only because of weather situation (the same reason for Qatar World Cup) hopefully the next AFC Cup will be in summer. beside that having this competition only 6 months after the World Cup is not a good idea at all.

 

I didn't name Lebanon because they are not just new for us we played them several times recently. but yeah those teams will be weak but at least in this sport there are always chances for underdogs to surprise 1 or 2 teams. but of course I don't expect a surprising winner. that will be one of those top 5 teams plus UAE which I agree is very dangerous. looking at the brackets it's very important for Iran to win the group, because our group's runner-up will get Saudi Arabia in round of 16 (assuming they will win their group which won't be easy for them) KSA is the last team I want to face. not because they are very good but because of the rivalries and things usually get out of hands in Iran-KSA matches. if all big teams win their groups and no surprise happens, we will have JPN-AUS and also KOR-KSA in quarterfinals.

 

but the situation doesn't look good for Iran, as usual our enemy is ourselves, the whole story will be boring but there is a verbal fight in past few months between Carlos Queiroz and the Croat guy Branko Ivankovic (former Iran NT coach and current coach of Persepolis the most popular club in Iran) and Ivankovic managed to put almost all Persepolis fans against the national team. also for some reasons almost the whole "football comunity" and most of the media here are against Queiroz. he is now something like "public enemy number 1" here. because of Queiroz's personality people either love him or hate him. also his recent interview saying " Undoubtedly, our dream is to reach to the final four. Defending champion Australia, Japan and South Korea will most likely qualify for the semifinals and Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and China have to fight to advance to the semis as the fourth team " made it much much worse. I know as a coach he just wanted to lower the expectations but the "football community" here considered it as a huge offense to the history of our football. now everybody here thinks anything else than winning the Cup will be a disaster !! which is stupid because the last time Iran won the Cup was 43 years ago ! yeah we were close so many times. we lost so many times on penalties or by bad referee decisions but still "43 years" is a lot.

 

beside that most of our Euro based players are injured and not in good shape. even though it seems they won't miss the competition but you know (specially based on Mo Salah's experience in Russia) that if you are still injured you can't play well no matter how good you are. but we have two not-that-hard matches at the start. we have time for them to recover fully.

 

WOW ! Eriksson will coach Philippines  but not really big surprise compared to his last teams that he worked in , his time has just passed . well adding to the list of Asian cups in winter is the 2011 edition which has been played in January also in Qatar , according to Wiki 2023 edition will be either on Korea or China  so they shouldn't have problems in hosting it in Summer . it'll be a very interesting R16 match between KSA and Iran  , but i think both teams are very capable of topping their groups , but ofc Iraq and Qatar are dangerous especially Qatar , seeing this match between KSA and Qatar will be really interesting , enemies brothers  i think Iran will destroy Iraq as they want to get revenge ofc from 2015 defeat , Vietnam could cause problems to Iraq actually they have very good young teams and i'm sure they'll use some of these talents here . . for Iranian team ofc Queiroz will be in a lot of danger , yes he has qualified twice to WC , but he didn't win something big yet with Iran , he didn't pass 1st round in WC , i'm sure that if Iran wont reach the final at least here , he'll be sacked and that's something i even predicted before u said it . what i know about injuries is Alireza Jahanbaksh Brighton player who i just read yesterday that he couldn't even make it to the 23 man final squad , which'll a big loss for Iranian team, do u have another serious injuries , is Azmoun for example ok ? 

[MHSN 3,632]

14 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

 

WOW ! Eriksson will coach Philippines  but not really big surprise compared to his last teams that he worked in , his time has just passed . well adding to the list of Asian cups in winter is the 2011 edition which has been played in January also in Qatar , according to Wiki 2023 edition will be either on Korea or China  so they shouldn't have problems in hosting it in Summer . it'll be a very interesting R16 match between KSA and Iran  , but i think both teams are very capable of topping their groups , but ofc Iraq and Qatar are dangerous especially Qatar , seeing this match between KSA and Qatar will be really interesting , enemies brothers  i think Iran will destroy Iraq as they want to get revenge ofc from 2015 defeat , Vietnam could cause problems to Iraq actually they have very good young teams and i'm sure they'll use some of these talents here . . for Iranian team ofc Queiroz will be in a lot of danger , yes he has qualified twice to WC , but he didn't win something big yet with Iran , he didn't pass 1st round in WC , i'm sure that if Iran wont reach the final at least here , he'll be sacked and that's something i even predicted before u said it . what i know about injuries is Alireza Jahanbaksh Brighton player who i just read yesterday that he couldn't even make it to the 23 man final squad , which'll a big loss for Iranian team, do u have another serious injuries , is Azmoun for example ok ? 

 

As of today, Jahanbakhsh is not going to miss the Cup. they are still waiting for him to recover. Azmoun is fine now he had a serious eye injury earlier but he is fine now still he is under lots of pressure. he "retired" from the NT after the World Cup because of those pressure (and because some stupid kids insulted his family in social media) later Queiroz convinced him to come back but he just made the pressure much more with that. actually I never believed his "retirement" show.

 

speaking of injured players, I can name Ali Gholizadeh who was supposed to be our secret weapon here, he had a very good season in Charleroi in Belgium, but he just got injured and early reports say he will miss the first 2 games, not a sure thing if CQ even picks him up. another one is Morteza Pouraliganji (or simply PAG) he is our main centre back, he just came back to play after long absence. another one is Saeid Ezzatollahi (the one who scored that off-side goal against Spain and gave us 4-5 seconds of extreme joy ) he was clubless for a while, joined Reading in Championship. got injured , rarely played. totally out of shape. another player is Kaveh Rezaei who just got injured right before his club's match against Dortmund in UCL and not recovered yet. I can add Ashkan Dejagah, Pejman Montazeri and Majid Hosseini to the list. they are all ready to play now but after a long absence. but in past few years under Queiroz we never had a "star" so missing few players won't affect Iran the way it affects other teams. I know foreign media made Azmoun as a "star" for Iran but he was never the most important player of our team. he is important though specially if Kaveh Rezaei doesn't make it.

 

Queiroz's contact will be expired after the AFC Cup. I think he did OK with the NT at the World Cup. we were just one goal away from the qualification in a tough group. but so many people here don't like his defensive style. (personally I'm fine with that. you have to do what you are good at, we won't play defensive against Asian teams)  but I think it's time for him to go. it's impossible to work in such situation when everybody wants your head. and Queiroz himself was indeed guilty in this.

I know Vietnam is improved a lot but still I think we will be a very bad matchup for them. I think Yemen (despite being weaker than Vietnam) will make more problems. revenge against Iraq ? yeah maybe but I'm sure most people here still blame the Australian referee "Ben Williams" for that match. we were leading 1-0 and everything was under control for another 1-0 Queiroz style win but then he sent off someone wrongly in first half and made Iran play 80 minutes with 10 men. that was an epic match, 10-man Iran came back twice in extra time made it 3-3 but again we lost on penalties as usual. our matches vs Iraq are usually tense but nothing even close to Saudi-Iran rivalries or even Iran-Korea rivalries.

[thepharoah 2,405]

@MHSN Btw which edition of Asian Cup do u think was the best according to quality of matches ofc , i followed the tournament regurarly since 2004 and i can say that this edition was the best so far i've seen many underdogs were introduced for the 1st time in the big asian level , many knockout crazy matches , controversial refereeing decisions , maybe the biggest one was that happened during Jordan and Japan match in quarters when the referee decided suddenly to change the goals during penalty shootouts as Jordan was leading 3-1 then all of a sudden Jordanese players missed 3 penalties and lost the match , i can't remember any other matches where this decision was made during penalty shoutouts 

[MHSN 3,632]

7 hours ago, thepharoah said:

@MHSN Btw which edition of Asian Cup do u think was the best according to quality of matches ofc , i followed the tournament regurarly since 2004 and i can say that this edition was the best so far i've seen many underdogs were introduced for the 1st time in the big asian level , many knockout crazy matches , controversial refereeing decisions , maybe the biggest one was that happened during Jordan and Japan match in quarters when the referee decided suddenly to change the goals during penalty shootouts as Jordan was leading 3-1 then all of a sudden Jordanese players missed 3 penalties and lost the match , i can't remember any other matches where this decision was made during penalty shoutouts 

 

well hard to compare editions to each other but I can say 2000 in Lebanon and 2007 Southeast Asia were the worst. and yeah 2004 was one of the better editions.

 

yeah I remember that match can't remember why the ref changed the goal during the penalties, I remember Zico (Japan coach) protested a lot just to have a break and save his team (after missing 2 early penalties) and it worked pretty well for him. we were following Jordan team at the time closely because they just beat Iran at Azadi Stadium in 2006 World Cup qualifier few days before the Asian Cup and we had to play them right after the Asian Cup in Amman.

 

the officiating was bad in that edition as usual. I remember Iran-Oman match, where the Bahraini ref should sent off 3 of our players but he didn't notice all those actions !! (two of them slapped each other !!) but the one Iranians never forget was the semifinal . the Lebanese ref red carded Sattar Zare for no reason at the start of the 1st half and forced us to play with 10 men against the host team (China later deserved a red card but didn't happen) but of course the frame I remember from that competition was the last penalty. what the commentator said after the penalty is still very famous here. Golmohammadi tried a Penanka penalty in the last one and badly missed it. I'm still hearing his voice

 

speaking of penalties, we got eliminated in 1984 (KSA), 1996 (KSA), 2004 (CHN), 2007 (KOR) and 2015 (IRQ)  editions by penalties.   and I remember all of them (except 1984) still like it was yesterday.