MHSN

We dropped two valuable points against Syria ! but I can't blame our players/coach at all, it was everything but not football ! the pitch condition was TERRIBLE, that was mud-ball ! Seriously, shame on the officials to let a WCQ be played in this condition we knew the pitch will be poor, but still AFC let that stadium and that city hosted the match. even Argentina and Brazil could not score on that pitch ! even though we scored a clean goal , wrongly called offside. what I can say about Syrian players ? 90 mins the match was played in mud, of which 45 min Syrians were lying on the floor even after the match Queiroz out of anger didn't let his players/staffs shake hand with the Syrians ! at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how but we dropped two points here and both Korea and Uzbekistan are right behind us. we could have a big lead by now but still we have a good chance with 3 matches at home (UZB and KOR have two ) ------------------------------------------- and in Group B, Australia is in trouble after losing 2 points in Thailand ! I think this is clear that 7 teams are still in the race for the World Cup. Iran, Korea and Uzbekistan in Group A and Saudi, Japan, Australia and UAE in Group B.

Iran won the Sabre World Cup in Dakar today !! even though I know some big countries like Russia DNP and some countries are in rebuilding phase after the Olympics but still it was quite an achievement for Iranian fencing ! first team medal at the world Cup and first ever gold overall .and they beat Korea for the first time ever ! Fencing could be quite popular here if Abedini could score that damn 15th points at 14-14 against Hommer in semifinal. I still can see that moment in my nightmares lol

Iran will be in big trouble for the next match vs Syria because so many key players will be missed. we had some key injured players and then FIFA sanctioned few more because of that Iran-Qatar match ! I can't understand why now ?! we played 3 more matches after that and now they punished both teams harshly ! after Iran's first goal in 94th minute, some of Qatari players tried to attack our assistant coach because of his celebration but they couldn't and the match was stopped for 5-6 minutes but there was no "fight" and nobody got punched nor kicked . it was ugly but non of these players deserved such punishment ! the ref didn't even card anybody as far as I remember. I would say FIFA wants to support Qatar but wow Qatar got even a harsher punishment than Iran !!

Actually I was more thinking about involving the 3rd placer into the medal matches, giving more motivation to everybody in the group stage, with only 2 advancing, some will lose motivation too early which will benefit some other athlete in a not-fair way.

I like this qualification format but I believe they will save few spots for each continent, something like having the best ranked athlete (or two best) in all weights from Oceania or something like that. by the way I like having group stage but with groups of 5 athletes, some of them will lose motivation after losing 2 matches and that won't be fair. I would like to see group winners going to the final directly and 2nd and 3rd placers playing against each other for joint bronze medals. (2nd group A against 3rd Group B ) not having 60kg is not a good news for us since our best Karateka is in this weight but well we are talking about 4 years from now, too early to even think about which Karateka will be there !

Very happy with the team title. that was a very close battle, it looked like Japan will win the title after Ganjzadeh lost to his archrival Kagawa (the same guy he lost to at the Asian Games and got disqualified later) but Askari and Poursheib saved the day and won the title for Iran. It's too early to think about Tokyo 2020 but this tournament shows we can count on Karate in next Olympics.

That was a perfect day for Iran, 5 out of 5 ! two gold and three bronze medals ! and we still have kumite team in the final. winning 6 medals is a very good result specially now Karate getting much more attention because of Tokyo 2020.

Is there any live stream for the finals?

Iran will be in team kumite final for the 2nd time in a row, this time against Japan. they didn't lose a single individual match in their way to the final. A very good tournament for men's kumite team so far, even though the rest of the team were disappointing. in the women's side, it will be France vs Spain

A summary of what happened today Women's 61kg Final: IGNACE LUCIE vs LOTFY GIANA Bronze: SEROGINA ANITA vs YIN XIAOYAN Bronze: SUCHANKOVA INGRIDA vs THI NGOAN NGUYEN Women's 55kg Final: THOUY EMILIE vs KUMIZAKI VALERIA Bronze: WEN TZU-YUN vs JEFRY KRISHNAN SYAKILLA SALNI Bronze: CARDIN SARA vs YAMADA SARA Women's 50kg Final: MIYAHARA MIHO vs RECCHIA ALEXANDRA Bronze: SRUNITA SARI SUKATENDEL vs SAYED RADWA Bronze: PLANK BETTINA vs SEGARAN SHREE SHARMINI Men's 67kg Final: TADISSI YVES MARTIAL vs THOMAS JORDAN Bronze: DACOSTA STEVEN vs UYGUR BURAK Bronze: FIGUEIRA VINICIUS vs MADERA ANDRES Men's 60kg Final: BERENS GEOFFREY vs MEHDIZADEH AMIR Bronze: AMEKNASSI ABDESSALAM vs FARZALIYEV FIRDOVSI Bronze: MARESCA LUCA vs AGOUDJIL SOFIANE Women's Team Kata Final: Japan vs Spain Bronze: Egypt vs Turkey Bronze: Croatia vs Italy Men's Team Kata Final: France vs Japan Bronze: Italy vs Egypt Bronze: Malaysia vs Spain

so at the end of individual events. we will have two in the final and three fighting for the bronze, bad day for Iran but Mehdizadeh saved the day by making to the final. our men's team did very good here with 4 out of 5 in medal round. only Ahmadi lost in quarterfinal. now Karate being an Olympics sport (at least for 2020) I just hpoe they organize this sport in Iran. I think only Judo is worse than Karate in term of organization in Iran. just to show about the mess they are in, when they won the team Kumite title two years ago, the coach just took the cup to his home !

yes and both team kata events. they divided the competition for each event into 4 blocks (4 pools) each pool will be held in one Tatami until knowing the pool winner. for example right now we have 3 pools of women's 55kg (pool 2, 3 and 4) and 2 pools of men's 67kg (1 and 2) underway in 5 Tatamis.

I got used to it, their maze is ugly but not that hard to understand we had the whole competition (except the finals) in 7 events yesterday. 7 more events for today. team kumite events for tomorrow. while all finals will be on Saturday and Sunday. maybe this link helps a bit to understand their stupid program https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/dtm_timetables/74.html

Out of 5 athletes in Kumite, 4 of them made it to the medal round for Iran but that's a pity Abbasali and Poursheib lost to Japanese Karateka only by Hantei. and Asiabari lost to Aghayev in semifinal. not a bad result considering all the mess that happened in our Karate. they don't even have their coach here in Austria !

A summary of what happened today Women's Kata Final: SAYED SARAH vs SHIMIZU KIYOU Bronze: ORA SISILIA AGUSTIANI vs BOTTARO VIVIANA Bronze: WIENINGER KRISTIN vs SANCHEZ JAIME SANDRA Men's Kata Final: QUINTERO CAPDEVILA DAMIAN HUGO vs KIYUNA RYO Bronze: SMORGUNER ILJA vs SHAWKY AHMED Bronze: LIM CHEE WEI vs DIAZ ANTONIO Men's +84kg Final: GANJZADEH SAJAD vs OUCHEN ACHRAF Bronze: KVESIC ANDJELO vs SUJKOVIC HARIS Bronze: ISHEVCI HEROLIND vs GRINEVICH ANDREI Men's 84kg Final: ARAGA RYUTARO vs MAMAYEV AYKHAN Bronze: POORSHAB ZABIOLLAH vs HERRERA CESAR Bronze: ARKANIA GOGITA vs GRILLON KENJI Women's +68kg Final: CHATZILIADOU ELENI vs UEKUSA AYUMI Bronze: HURRY KATIE vs TATAROVA DOMINIKA Bronze: VIDIC MASA vs ABBASLI HAMIDEH Women's 68kg Final: PEDERSEN KATRINE vs BUCHINGER ALISA Bronze: CAVAR IVONA vs BRUNSTAD GITTE Bronze: SEMERARO SILVIA vs RAKOVIC MARINA Men's 75kg Final: AGHAYEV RAFAEL vs ABDEL RAHMAN OMAR Bronze: SMAAL RENE vs ASIABARI ALIASGHAR Bronze: SCOTT THOMAS vs BUSA LUIGI

https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/veranstaltung_info_main.php?active_menu=calendar&vernr=74&ver_info_action=catmitlist#a_eventheadend

Draw for 2016 World Karate Championships https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/veranstaltung_info_main.php?active_menu=calendar&vernr=74&ver_info_action=catauslist#a_eventheadend

Great win for Iran against South Korea "Derby Asia", another 1-0 Queiroz style ! this was fourth 1-0 win in a row against Korea ! and this time Iran played really good, they wasted 4-5 big chances today, the scoreline could be easily 3-0 or something like that. if I'm not wrong Korea had only and only 1 shoot in entire match and ZERO on target ! same as Uzbekistan ! Before this week I would be happy with 4 points out of 2 matches, now we have 6 but still when I look at the table, it doesn't look safe at all.

one more name in weightlifting from 2012 Olympics VARDANYAN Norik (ARM) – Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (S1.1 Anabolic Agents)

oh yeah it's hard to believe once I used to cheer for them as an Asian team yeah they were an interesting team back in 1994 with their "boneless" keeper Al-Deayea and that guy Owairan, who dribbled the whole Belgium team to score ! you are right about that, but the hatred in football field started even before that !

I think only Australia is safe, Japan lost to UAE at home and struggled a lot against Iraq. (their 1st goal was clearly off-side) they are still the favorite but UAE has a chance. in Group A. I agree Uzbekistan is weaker this time but Korea is not really playing well either. Iran looks better this time (we were really bad in 2010 and 2014) but we NEVER qualified for the World Cup twice in a row. so I still prefer to wait 2 more matches to have confidence about the qualification. we can't count on our solid defense forever.

I can write a book about this, and of course I'm biased here but when they play in Asia, dubious calls usually go in their way, (before today, they scored 3 goals, all of them penalties dubious calls included) since they have money, they think they own everything, when they didn't want to go Thailand, they told AFC to arrange groups and not putting them with the same group as Thailand, now they don't want to play in Iran, they simply call AFC/FIFA and tell them to play in neutral venue. they forced Iraq to play them in Malaysia !! (since Iraq can't host its own matches, they named 2-3 countries to FIFA but Saudis rejected them all to play in wherever they want) and they also play dirty, they are famous for grassrolling and etc. as for being an Iranian, there are so much hatred between us and Saudis, it's not a "rivalry" like Brazil-Argentina , simply hatred. and the current political tension between two countries makes it even much worse. Saudi Arabia was the only team I wanted to avoid before the draw, only because of this.and there is still a chance to play them in 5th place play-off.

Actually Group B is quite interesting, four teams are almost equal in the table and Japan is really struggling. still I hope for no surprise in this group, even though I usually cheer for underdogs but this time I hope Japan and Aussies make it for our own sake in case we finish 3rd in our group. and it's hard to like Saudi Arabia, the most disgusting team in the world. UAE is a likeable team though

Very important away win against Uzbekistan in Tashkent. No single shot on goal by Uzbekistan next games vs Korea in Tehran will be crucial Syria is somehow a favorite now after beating China in China

3rd place at FIFA World Cup, not bad at all and again we had to comeback like other knockout matches in this tournament. our guys did great in this tourney after a poor start. I believe we could beat Russia if the officiating was a bit better. playing in the final would be great but still 3rd place is also a great result. first ever world medal for an Asian team.