MHSN

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.

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.

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.

IWF also announced some few more lists in their Anti-Doping news section. only two of them are notable. both from Thailand Teerapat CHOMCHUEN and Duanganksnorn CHAIDEE. Chomchuen won a bronze medal in CJ at the World Championships. that medal will go to Rusev from Bulgaria Chaidee won 2 bronze medals (CJ and total) in women's superheavyweight. both of her bronze medals will go to PRK. she also won a bronze medal at the Asian Games in Jakarta. I wonder if this doping thing happened during the World Champs or before that at the AG. but I assume that happened in Ashgabat and she won't lose her AG medal. Christina Iovu is also in the list because of violation of Article 2.2 she won a bronze in CJ at the Worlds

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.

yeah I guess so. did IOC announced the names of 2 athletes ? or it's just IWF that announces names so fast ? with these 5, we already have 29 positive tests from Weightlifting in that Olympics (including 16 medalists )!!

wow I just see that. we also have Ruslan Nurudinov in that list, he finished 4th in that Olympic thought but he will miss 2020 Olympics. but seriously that was surprising now. I thought we are done with IOC re-testing 2012 Olympics was already best ever Olympics for Iran. if Official it will make 6 gold medals. 3 of them in weightlifting ! (3 gold and 2 silver out of 6 athletes and the last one Moradi bombed out) from that list, only Hristov also won a bronze which now will go to Vietnam Torokhtiy's gold will go to Nasirshalal. Bonk of Poland will be upgraded to silver. and bronze will go to 5th placer (4th place was Nurudinov) also from Uzbekistan Efremov. Nasirshalal was an average weightlifter who just had one good day in his whole career which was the most important day too. some people are just born lucky. he wasn't even supposed to go to London. PS: I assume in couple of years. maybe more. we will hear about Nurudinov losing his 2016 Gold medal. his sadden improvement was too surprising. actually Uzbekistan was very weak in Weightlifting until 2012 but all of a sudden they became strong. looks like they took some lessons from Kazakhstan !

That makes sense his result is too good for someone new. but how come they just put two parts of his name to create a new name ? and also changed his birthdate. https://www.iwf.net/new_bw/athletes_newbw/?athlete=fares-hassouna-1998-01-01&id=13946 https://www.iwf.net/new_bw/athletes_newbw/?athlete=elbakh-fares-ibrahim-e.-h.-1998-06-04&id=13315

Another "no mark " for Ilyin I wonder if he knows he can't do that anymore. this is funny he was 101.76 for the World Champs not long ago. today he weighted 108.30 ! well I think he is up to something . he is really the biggest cheater ever. no WR in this Qatar Cup but some results in women's competition were so close to the WR. the only notable result in men's comeptition was "Hassouna Fares" (who? ) I wonder if he is the same guy as "Fares Ibrahim Hassouna El-Bakh" or maybe a brother/cousin of him ?!

Guys I have a question from swimming experts. I was checking some Swimming Results from the Asian Games and I found out they consider first 50m of 100m Breaststroke event as the Games record for 50m. I knew they consider the first swimmer in relay events for records but didn't know about this. my question is, is this something new in the rules ? or it was always like that ?

well for IWF, if you participate in weight-in which is 2 hours before the competition you will be listed in results book and that will be counted as a result. that's what exactly Ilyin did in the World Championships. Olympic qualification rules say you need 6 results in these 18 months (at least one in each 6 months period) and 4 best results will be counted. so he can afford having two "no marks" btw for IWF, participating in weight-in and then not showing up is equal to participating but bombing out which happens a lot.

Start list for Qatar Cup which started today https://www.iwf.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2018/12/Start_book_DOHA.pdf the most interesting name is Ilya Ilyin ! I wonder if he will really lift anything or it will be another "no mark" for him. he needs 6 results for the qualification. 4 of them will be counted. so he has one more "no mark" to give his entry is very low for 109kg but you never know

Didn't expect Al-Eye playing toe to toe with River Plate let alone winning it ! they also deserved a penalty in 1st half. clear handball but the ref rejected VAR's advise of calling that penalty.

that's simple . swimming is a big sport (I mean relatively big comparing to other individual sports) in most countries while in Iran nobody cares much about it. the general opinion is we are weak in this and we will never win medal in this sport. I mean sport ministry always speaks about how important are these 3 sports (athetlics, Swimming and Gymnastics) and how we should care more about them but in reality those 3 sports always had low budget, and almost zero media attention here. we had some better results from 2005 to 2010 (in 2008 for the first time Iran actually qualified a swimmer for the Olympics and didn't receive a Wild Card) and also almost won a medal at 2010 Asian Games. (4th place finish which is our best ever result in swimming) there were some hopes for improvement but then a disaster happened to our swimming federation which annulled all those improvements and we went back to the stone age. building something good takes years but destroying it is much easier. our current swimming federation focuses more on Water Polo as they believe in short term we only have medal chance in this and 2018 Asian Games proved they are not wrong. they also have long term plans for swimming though but I'm not optimistic. by disaster I mean the "president" we had for a short period in 2010. (less than 2 years) that guy was crazy stupid like Trump but without his money ! he was that bad even when the government later fired that guy FINA didn't say a word (even though that was very clear government intervention) but even FINA was OK that guy leaving. fortunately for the humankind he is in jail now for another crime he committed later.

i just saw this . if you still want an answer let me tell you he is a terrible player he had his NT debut when he was 16 ! but he never improved since then. he was NT second setter sometimes mostly because of his good blocking skills. not really a good setter. always had problems with his coaches. actually he left his club in Iran for Europe because of his problems with the coach. he is 3rd or 4th setter in Iran at the moment.

I calculate the ranking. it's different than what you see in WT website because I already deduced some points (tournaments will lose 25% of their value each year) so the final ranking will be 100% of 2019 event + 75% of 2018 pts + 50% of 2017 58kg: Jang (KOR) 1110 Kim (KOR) 662 Artamonov (RUS) 293 Hadipour (IRI) 270 Chen (CHN) 241 Wu (CHN) 187 I think it's almost a sure thing that one of those Koreans will finish first. they will also qualify through ranking . that will go to the Olympic ranking 68kg: Zhao (CHN) 1050 Lee (KOR) 770 Sindon (GBR) 450 Recber (TUR) 203 Denisenko (RUS) 180 Perez (ESP) 162 I think one of those top 3 will grab that spot. Lee won't need that to qualify. also very possible for both Sindon and Zhao to qualify via ranking. Zhao's chance looks better but if Lee DH takes it serious I think he will win the last Grand Slam and the quota. which means most probably that spot also goes to the Olympic ranking 80kg: Khramtsov (RUS) 1250 Hwan (KOR) 810 Beigi (AZE) 450 Chen (CHN) 305 Khramtsov and Beigi are good in ranking. but the situation is no good for Korea in this weight. I'm sure they will count on this guy Hwan to qualify from here. he has to win the next Grand Slam and hope for Khramtsov not making to the final. Beigi's chance is very slim too. I think most probably Khramtsov will finish 1st here and also qualifies through ranking. again the spot will go to the ranking. +80kg: In (KOR) 950 Mardani (IRI) 930 Kuznetsov (RUS) 300 Song (CHN) 270 Sun (CHN) 266 huge gap between Mardani / In KD and the rest. even though it's still possible for someone out of this list to come winning the last Grand Slam and grab 1000pts and the quota . that can happen if both Mardani and In Kyodon fails to qualify for the top 4. but it's more realistic to think it will be either Mardani or In. the Korean guy is already safe in the ranking. while Mardani has to be careful. he most probably only has to finish higher than In Kyo-don next year to qualify for the Olympics ! I'm a bit lazy to calculate all for the women's weight classes. but taking a quick look in summary I think it's very possible that nobody qualifies from this competition after all !

thanks, it helped a lot. another question. if an athlete finishes first in WT Grand Slam series and also finishes in top 5 of the World Ranking. who will get the quota ? the next athlete from the ranking ? or the 2nd athlete in Grand Slam ranking ? I'm asking this because most of Grand Slam winners will finish in top 5. Oops. I found my answer in the link you already gave us. that will go to the 6th athlete in the World Ranking.

no it wasn't a ranking points event. they gave it N/A instead of G1 or whatever else. this is funny because the qualification event for this was a G2 ! http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/World-Taekwondo-Event-Calendar-2018-2020_180731.pdf rules say it doesn't sound like just winning one tournament. it talks about points and standing ! I think when they made this they were thinking about a series of Grand slams not just one in a year. but I can't see any Grand Slam ranking in their website. this is just so unclear

haha yeah I just watched it well it was hard to believe he is going to win the match. I mean I already knew the score from the news but still ! but this is the reason I don't like his style. he always makes his matches like this. doing nothing until the last seconds. even Mahama Cho (who was helping the commentator) mentioned that about his style. I think this format suits Mardani more than other Iranians because of this. but Mardani always sucks when it matters, Olympics and Asian Games. even though it was nice winning the gold but I think this tournament has no points for the ranking, right ? but according to the qualification rules. the winner of WT Grand Slam Series Ranking will qualify for the Olympics ?! I wonder how they will calculate a ranking ?! or is it just 2019 WT Grand Slam Champion ? or they consider results from previous Grand Slams as well

I just watched the match it doesn't look like he is losing intentionally . he almost ipponed the Japanese guy early in the match .and he gave up score on his own attack and he was pretty upset with that final call which was dubious (at least to him) . but in competitions like this against such a good opponent you have to focus 100% to stand a chance but probably thinking about the next round possible Israel draw had some effects on his game even if you are World Champion and World Rank 1. still losing to Japan in judo is no surprise they are always the favorite

Hadipour beat Kim TH for bronze he was lucky the format is different in medal round. this is best of 5 instead of best of 3 for men. Kim won first 2 rounds narrowly 3-2 and 6-3 but Hadipour came back strongly to win next 3 rounds. with some great advises from his coach. both were deadly tired in last 2 rounds . Hadipour was smart listening to his coach changing his style entirely. funny that since Grand Slam is not a part of NT program. both Hadipour and Mardani are here on their own with their own coach. (and not the national coach Askari) turned out to be a good thing for them I'm heading out and will miss Mardani's final . as much as I don't like him still I hope he wins a gold somewhere finally I watched few matches in past few days. I think this format is not a total disaster as it was in wrestling. still I prefer the current format.

Nice work, that's a very interesting list, it's almost impossible to know everything about all 200 NOCs in the world but I wonder what's your criteria to consider "chances" . more than 50% chances ? because our chance to qualify in basketball is surely less than 20% (with China being stronger than Iran and also hosting the World Cup as the main qualifier) on other hand our chance to qualify in every single men's classes in wrestling is more than that for sure . I expect us to fail to qualify in 1 or 2 classes but not in those weights you didn't mention as "chance" I watched the Iranian chances, surprised to see Sailing there !? I have to check is there anybody "not living in Iran" representing our country ? because I'm quite sure we don't have quality sailors here. this sport barely even exists. Edit: I got that you only consider NOCs not qualified yet. so that's no big deal not being "accurate" but still my question stands about our chances in sailing ?!

I see, Hadipour beat him once in Manchester GP final but he lost more to this guy (including 2017 World Champs final). so he will be underdog if Kim TH shows up. Kim lost here and there to Iranians before but the guy who never lost to our athletes is Lee Dae-hoon he won every single match he had vs the Iranians. I remember Yaghoubi, Asbaghi, Hosseini, Bakhshi and Naderian losing to him. (probably there are more names in the list) they are all very good fighters, almost all of them World medalists, but none of them could find a solution for this guy he is a nice guy and also he is VERY popular in East Asia ! they consider him very handsome. but with WT increasing the number of competitions, there are more chances top athletes participating when they are not 100% and pick up some defeats. maybe losing sometimes is not that big surprise. but the money prize for this event is bigger than other competitions, that's quite a motivation

wow so many surprising results. Kim Tae-hun and Lee Dae-hoon losing in the same day (not to even great opponents) Lee DH losing to Sindon is indeed the biggest surprise of the year. also Milad Beigi lost to a guy from Korea. Beigi used to destroy everybody a year ago but he is just another good athlete these days. we had a small team here. only 2. Hadipour will fight for bronze (unfortunately for him that will be against Kim TH) but Mardani !! will be in gold medal match. this guy Mardani is in national team program for few years. and I never liked him. I hate his conservative style and I can't understand how he get some good results sometimes.

oh well looks like another trouble for Mollaei, in World Masters, he will get Sagi Muki (ISR) in 2nd round. I wonder if he will try to beat the Japanese guy in first round or not. because Muki beating the Belgium Casse is 50/50. and they will fight after Mollaei/JPN match now he is world #1 it won't be easy for Mollaei to lose like that again.