MHSN

so which 4 team will be seeded for the Playoffs ? I assume SUI/POR, Croatia, Italy  ? who is the fourth team ?

Shame I couldn't watch Egypt-Congo Match, I'm sure there is a great atmosphere there right now  with a 90+5 minute goal. Congrats Egypt

23 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

Yarab,  plz God , I can't believe I can finally watch Egypt in WC 

I think we can already congratulate you in advance, even though nothing is guaranteed in this sport, specially when it comes to Africa

interesting that Egypt won the African Cup multiple times in past few years but didn't qualify for the World Cup in 28 years.

1 hour ago, Henry_Leon said:

Disappoint for the draw but nothing is lost, however we have many absences (midfield and FW /Belotti) hope we can play the PO with all players fit!

 

I don't understand the people that already talks about our fail..... NO ONE after the draw had think a direct qualifying (with Spain second), the playoff was the first target, now will go at playoff  for reach Russia!

 

It's not about the results, but the way they play. Italy didn't create much chances against a team like Macedonia today, no much time left till the crucial playoffs. I hope all main players return for those 2 matches. as I said before I can't even imagine a world cup without Italy.

27 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

Sadly Ventura is one of the wrost coach that Italian national team never had.. and he have a contract until 2020 

well I follow the Italian NT since 1993 and even Donadoni was a better coach than Ventura.  btw the only time I cried for a sport , that was for Italy NT long time ago

I don't think he stays if Italy fails to qualify which is very possible now, I hope I'm wrong , big teams like Italy usually find a way to win crucial matches, this Italy has so many good players but today's match was just terrible, I remember we played this Macedonia team away last year and even Iran completely dominated them.

17 hours ago, heywoodu said:

In Iran you mean? Cool that there's a lot of tournaments there, the Dutch commentators were briefly talking about that they're working hard especially on the junior's side to get some good level there  

 

It would definitely be nice to actually see some Iranian(s) on the major tournaments now and then, even if it's 'just' at the BDO (the low level professionals and the arch enemy federation of the PDC, which is where all the good stuff is). Every time a new country pops up that gets a +1 from me  

no I mean in general, as you said there are more than "one world championship" in this sport.

I'm not sure if they are working hard, I can compare it to something like snooker, while there was no proper organization for Snooker (and now Darts) the younger generation developed the sport. even though Dart is even much easier than Snooker to play.

watching Italy-Macedonia match, this Italian team is a complete disaster, a year ago they had a good team with Conte, now with Ventura

I can't believe if my favorite team Italy misses the world cup but that's now very possible, this Italian team won't be favorite against any team in the playoffs.

4 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Check these junior women results at the WDF World Cup, Iran is on fire  

http://worldcup-darts.jp/kobe2017/result/

 

@MHSN New obscure sport for you to know more about than 99,99% of Iranians  

LOL sports like Dart is a bit hard to follow, cuz you really don't know what's the highest level of the competition, there are so many amateurs/pro tournaments.

I heard about some achievement during the Dart World Cup but didn't take them serious since I don't trust Iranian sport media

Four members of Iranian weightlifting team denied visa by US embassy in Dubai ! two weightlifters and two officials, Ayoub Mousavi and Saleh Cheraghi both Asian silver medalists from 2017. fortunately all of our stars will be there in US. here is the list of those who went to Dubai for visa. because of the long visa process they can't add anybody else to the list. the Iranian federation is trying to solve the issue with the help of IWF and the US NOC, but they will probably fail.

69: Majid Askari

85: Kianoush Rostami, Saleh Cheraghi, Ali Miri, Masoud Chatraei

94: Sohrab Moradi, Ayoub Mousavi

105: MohammadReza Barari, Ali Hashemi, Alireza Soleimani

+105: Behdad Salimi, Saeid Alihosseini, Homayoun Teymouri

with all those countries missing the competition, most of Iranian weightlifters will be favorite for the medal. if Mousavi misses the tournament, they have no other option to bring Askari (probably the only one without a chance) , you can't send more than 2 weightlifters per weight,

the most interesting name in this list is Saeid Alihosseini, weightlifting community remembers him very well, he is still the world junior record holder. he had some crazy numbers in training 8 years ago. something like 215+270=485 ! but he got a life ban (later reduced to 12 years) for his 2nd doping test. apparently according to new rules his ban is reduced to 8 years and he is clear to participate, nobody knows about his current shape .they kept it like a secret.

  IRAN 

Faramarz Aslani - Age Ye Rooz (If One Day)

4 hours ago, monte88 said:

Why not Iran? They are the same like Russia and China.

the same ? in term of winning medals you mean probably !

let's say why not Poland ? Szarmiak and Zielinski brothers say hello

in past 6-7 years Iran had almost 1 positive test per year (last time 2014) which is still bad but nothing comparing to others. and actually Iranians never failed a drug test in a major competition, mostly because they test weightlifters in the national camp regularly before the major competitions, because of the costs they can't do that for all athletes and all competitions

of course I don't deny what we had with our Bulgarian coach long time ago but everything has changed since 2009 and because of the past record Iranian weightlifters are under IWF/WADA out of competition tests so many times per year.

This is a big news. that was the right decision, I'm glad to not see our country in this list ! we had a bad record in this case but at least in past few years they took it serious. even though advanced doping with higher technology doesn't exist in Iran, so if an Iranian uses something he will get caught soon and not 4 years later !

this will improve our results in the World Champs even though since USA is hosting the event and with the travel ban I'm not sure if we can even participate ! our athletes are already in Dubai for visa things.

Guys you can count me too

We had 13 finals today afternoon  , Iranians won 9 out of those 13 possible gold medals, 6 of them in Greco-Roman wrestling ! positive surprise here, because while this is our B team (2nd placers in our national trials). some of our Asian rivals like Uzbekistan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan etc. brought their top wrestlers. this is unbelievable that this year our Greco wrestlers got better results than freestyle in almost every competitions ! hard to believe since our depth in freestyle in 10 times bigger and better !

Iran also won the futsal gold today in style. no surprise we brought our very best team here ! but Hossein Vafaei lost the snooker final to China with only few events left for tomorrow, Iran will finish 3rd in medal table for sure. with 35 gold medals : 31 for men and 4 for women

Wrestling 9

Pahlavani wrestling 3

Alysh 1

Snooker 1

Futsal 1

Athletics 1

Ju-Jitsu 1

Kickboxing 5

Muaythai 3

Kurash 1

Taekwondo 7

Weightlifting 1

Cycling 1

22 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I wonder why basically everyone is against an independent Kurdistan. I mean, if Turkey, Iran, Iraq, USA all basically agree on something, this something truly must be the worst idea ever, surely?  

well they have different reasons for that, USA doesn't want another war inside the war against ISIS. Iraq doesn't want to lose parts of the country. but for Iran and Turkey this is mostly for security concerns. One day the Iraqi Kurdistan will go after the Kurdish parts of Iran and Turkey and you know in this region, when people want something, they usually don't ask that "nicely". it won't be like Scotland and Catalonia,

at least that's what they are afraid of, but who knows maybe it doesn't change anything. for example an independent Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan didn't cause any serious problem.

This is very interesting that China sent a bunch of new wrestlers to the World Championships but here in Turkmenistan they brought their experienced wrestlers and winning few medals. Did they really saved their best wrestlers for this ?!

Uzbekistan also brought all of their stars to this competition, India and Kyrgyzstan also somehow took the wrestling competition seriously, stlil no Korea and we can say The Japanese team here isn't that good. despite this, Iran won 8 medals in all freestyle weight classes. but to be honest none of them, even those 3 gold medalists convinced me.

we will have the whole Greco competition tomorrow. on paper our Greco team here isn't that great but when I check the draws, the level is a bit lower than freestyle and our Greco team is getting better results recently. so maybe they can get a better result than freestyle here

1 hour ago, Gianlu33 said:

They will be hard days in Iraq-Turkey-Syria.

And Iran. there are 3-4 Kurdish provinces in Iran. even though based on my own experiences the majority of Kurds in Iran consider themselves Iranian in first place. but obviously something like this will cause problems here as well.

This referendum is one thing, being a real independent country is something else, specially when all of your neighbors are against you ! still a long way to go to have a Kurdistan country. I wish the best for them, but I'm not sure what's really the "best" for them but I don't think life will get easier for Iraqi Kurdistan people after this.

I just hope it doesn't lead to any kind of war in the region.

Our wrestling is in trouble ,they can't dominate even such a not-high-level competition. even though Uzbekistan and few other Central Asia countries brought their A team here but still ... ! today's result was disappointing but expected. I knew only Goleij (97) is a sure gold medal. 74kg final and the way Eliasi lost to Abdurakhmanov was shameful.

and happy for the gold medal in team Snooker. Vafaei gave up a good money in his pro Snooker tour to compete here , at least he won't leave the competition empty-handed (and there is still Snooker Singles compettion left)

looks like a close battle for the 2nd place in medal table  and a gold medal for Fiji !

Winning a medal in equestrian was a bit surprising today but the biggest surprise came from Women's Alysh wrestling, the same girl who got robbed of a gold few days ago finally managed to win a gold in another event ( so many similar events !) Happy to see her smile finally

The highlight of the day was in weightlifting when our Olympic Champion broke the world record in total with 413kg. he could break the snatch record too, 185kg was too easy for him but apparently today his goal was only the total record.most of our top weightlifters are training for the World Champs in USA but Moradi wanted to test himself in an official competition after the Olympics.

we will have freestyle wrestling starting from tomorrow. our A team sucked big time in Paris and this is our B/C team. but still I expect them few gold medals here. based on the draw, 97kg gold looks safe but can't say the same for other 3 wrestlers.

I also hope they win the snooker gold medal tomorrow, that would be fun since I became interested in snooker recently

Despite losing few gold medal chances in Kurash, Taekwondo and Snooker today, MuayThai surprised me with 3 gold medals ! two of them beat Thailand on their way to the gold. which is a very rare thing in this sport. even Turkmenistan beat Thailand today they were nobodies in this sport, how come they improved like this in less than a year to beat Thailand ?!

we will have 3 wrestlers in Pahlavani finals, there is no "belt" here (they have trouser instead lol) but they listed this under Belt wrestling, that's a traditional Iranian wrestling, so no surprise if Iranians win matches QUITE easily. they most probably will win all 3 gold medals tonight.

LOL they awarded official medal for "Akhal Teke Cup" !! means another gold for Turkmenistan. that was an special competition for Turkmeni horses ! that wasn't in original handbook, I'm sure about that.

now let's talk about the 3rd day results. Iran is 2nd in medal table and I think they will keep that place till the end. even though Taekwondo competition is about to finish but there are still Kurash, wrestling, Pahlavani etc to give Iran more gold medals.

we have live coverage for this competition in Iran but so far ONLY for Taekwondo competitions ! not a bad choice since Iran won 6 gold medals so far, 5 out 6 men's gold medals. we picked up our first defeat here in one of the finals to Korea. this is a great result because of the level the competition is quite good in this sport and this is not even our first team, mostly 2nd or 3rd tier athletes. today we had a surprise gold medal in women's taekwondo ! which was also first gold medal for Iranian girls here. Parisa Javadi won few close matches to win the gold, which is rare for Iranian girls, they are good but always choke in crucial matches mostly because of lack of confidence. (the only exception is Kimia Alizadeh)

Ghanbarzadeh broke the indoor national record in high jump, still lost the gold medal to Ghazal of Syria (World Champs bronze medalist) just because Ghazal jumped 2.26 on his first jump.

but the most surprising result of the day belonged to our basketball team ! this is the 1st ever competition for Iranian girls after the 1979 revolution ! because FIBA only recently agreed to allow head scarf. Iran women team beat Chinese Taipei today ! I know this is not probably a top team from TPE but they are miles ahead of Iran in women's basketball, that's still quite an achievement. 3x3 basketball will be on the 2018 Asian Games program as well as the Olympics, time to take it more serious.

15 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

Well, with facilities like this they'll just need few good coaches and the results will come. At least they are not the athlete shopers like a lot of oil nations.

yeah so true. and we already can see a bit of improvement. I think this time in Jakarta 2018 they will win few medals, if I have to name two countries in Asia improving faster than the rest, I would name Vietnam and then Turkmenistan.

even as neighbors, we almost never hear about Turkmenistan here, (except when they stop gas exports to Iran and make trouble for northern provinces  ) but from my own experiences they are good people in general , maybe better than other -istan countries. and yes I hope they don't change their policy of not buying other athletes. I remember UAE also tried to not do that for a while but they finally surrender to that and started buying athletes and judokas. I think it's probably just a matter of time for Turkmenistan too if they don't get the quick results they wanted. of course I hope I'm wrong

5 hours ago, Griff88 said:

Ah yeah I saw that belt wrestling match...

 

Well the Turkmens need more gold medals for propaganda

That's a shame actually. they already cheated by adding toooooo many similar sports to the program.

I have to admit the organization is great, some of Iranian officials in the competition claim that's even better than the Olympics in Rio ! even though most of the top organizers are foreigners and not from Turkmenistan. but the problem is Turkmenistan (which is usually a poor country in everything including sports) wants to use this for propaganda as you said, I watch the competition for most of the day and if you watch their TV channels, they show a counter for their medal count which changes minutes by minute and they sound very proud of their "dominance" ! if you watched the competition, Turkmen Goresh (Traditional wrestling), Belt wrestling and Alysh are exactly the same ! the only difference is in scoring system.

Another problem is they have two competitions in almost all events. I know it's not cheating, they had that in their handbooks long time ago but almost no other country used that opportunity to send two athletes in each event. mostly in martial arts it's NOT common to see two athletes from the same country in the same weight.

and one thing about that girl and belt wrestling, as everybody know the "real" wrestling is not active in Iran for women and wrestling is somehow the national sport. there are so many girls here love to wrestle and this belt wrestling thing is probably the best and only chance for Iranian girls who love wrestling to try something at least a bit similar. I don't really care about belt wrestling medals (they are only good for the medal count) but I know that gold medal would mean everything for that Iranian girl. that's why she was crying on the podium. and btw I just found out that she is a cousin of our Olympic Champion Hassan Yazdani !

3 gold medals and a bunch of silver and bronze happy for the last gold, Taftian broke the national record to win the 60m. the other two golds were from Taekwondo, so far our men's team is undefeated, 4 golds out of 4 athletes.

and Iran got robbed a gold medal in belt wrestling against Turkmenistan, I'm glad they didn't disqualify the poor Iranian girl, she was protesting too much .