MHSN

I highly doubt Azmoun was injured. he is just not fit yet for 90 minutes football.

I swear I never wanted to win a match more than this in my entire life. mostly because of what happened in the first match (which was in unusual situation), don't care about the next match, to me they already succeed (that's just for now. I'm sure I will care in time ) that was a well deserved win and Iran should score earlier and missed so many chances but who could even imagine that Cheshmi of all people can even kick the ball from outside the box, let alone score a goal ! kind of funny that people were talking about Iran as the worst team of the competition. some of Welsh players were talking about the goal difference, yeah good luck next time.

Azmoun can't even run properly, won't last 90 minutes for sure. maybe it was better to use him fresh in the 2nd half. and that unselfish assist was stupid . he could score himself instead of that offside goal I wonder which team will benefit from the draw. none ? but I expect Wales to take more risks in the 2nd half

I wish I knew what's happening in Queiroz mind. first bringing only 25 players to Doha (the only team with one less player) then that super weird squad against England and now only 4 changes comparing to that against Wales. he just keeps surprising everybody. the only thing we can do is to pray Welsh forwards having a bad day.

while our main GK is ready to play with a mask (after his nose being broken against England) still FIFA doesn't let him play because of its head injury protocols he has to rest couple more days. the 2nd GK is totally out of the picture after those 6 goals. the 3rd GK is a bit too short to play against a British team. so people think Queiroz may use his 4th GK tomorrow, now we know why he brought 4 goalkeepers

FIFA should seriously consider increasing the number of AFC teams in the WC. more than half matches not involving an AFC team ended up 0-0

If we count friendlies Iran beat Uruguay few weeks ago Korea can do that too yet Queiroz apparently wasn't happy with that result and only 4 players from that match started against England (actually 3 if we don't count the injured GK)

unrelated question, do you know how Ranking works for Junior events. World Juniors + Continental Juniors can award 90pts together which is significant. it didn't counted for some of our boys in the WR. (they are now senior team members) do you happen to know the reason ?

wow. just wow, what a huge surprise Renard is indeed a great coach, he almost signed with Iran football federation in 2018, just those stupid guys in IFF changed their minds in last minute and signed that charlatan WIlmots instead it's still really hard for KSA to advance from this group but even if they lose next 2 matches they have a very good reason to celebrate

if you follow the news, people (mostly the younger generation) are protesting on the streets on a daily basis in last 2 months. some of them believe this is the end game and the regime will fall in next few days/weeks/months (which I disagree, we are far from there) and they somehow expect everybody (I mean famous people) to take a side. their moto is you are either with us or with them, no middle ground it's not like these players did anything special in favor of the regime, (only 2 players are pro-regime and we already knew that) it's just people are expecting too much from them. simply because they celebrated someone's birthday in their camp and celebrated a goal against Uruguay in a friendly match 40-50 days ago they became the "their team" and not our team. and participating in a photoshoot with so-called president few days ago put more fuel on the fire, even though most of key players were absent but who cares, when people decide to hate someone they don't listen to the facts.

from what I read some coaches from main Taekwondo countries had a meeting with WT president asking him to make some changes in the rules, not getting into details but what's probably more interesting is they asked WT president to remove Grand Slam from the calendar (and therefore from the Olympic qualification) and looks like there is a good chance WT accepts that. no Grand Slam tournament is scheduled in WT calendar this year

I think 3 bronze medals is our worst ever result since 1993 !! following worst ever results in Tokyo (winning no medal in TKD for the first time ever) but while the result itself was terrible I still saw some lights at the end of tunnel we had no other option but to bring some 17 years old kids and they all did good. (losing narrowly to eventual finalists) if WT sorted this electronic problem out earlier we would have more medals with better color. unfortunately our guys in last 2 days weren't simply good enough to take medal. it's clearly almost impossible to qualify more than 2 through the ranking (none of our guys are in good position) but I believe we have 3 or 4 kids capable of winning Olympic gold medals, Paris 2024 won't be as bad as Tokyo 2020.

I hope so but advancing to the next round is not a realistic goal at the moment. I just hope they play good and do what they are capable of but Queiroz benched half of the main players today. I don't know what was his plan. maybe he knew we’d lose against England and has some plans for the next match (wishful thinking) or maybe he simply has a different idea about who are the main players

I know everybody writes off Iran already and thinks about how many goals Wales and USA will score and which one will qualify with better GD. a lot of that pressure is lifted now, I believe we will do better in next matches. even though it's hard to pull it together after this heavy defeat and most probably we lost our GK too they were under an unthinkable inhuman amount of pressure today, they desperately wanted to show they are with the people the only way they could but still they are being attacked and some dumb people are posting their "celebrations" after each of England's goals in social media. I am ashamed to be Iranian when I see the disgusting behavior these people show. The players were suddenly responsible for everything bad that happens in this world.

yes I mean general population. of course we never have a real poll to know what people really think but that's my understanding based on social media, people I meet in real life etc some say this is "Islamic Republic team", not the "national team" therefore I support whoever faces the IR team and I'm glad the IR loses some players participated in a photoshoot with so-called president few days ago which amplified that voice. that was a stupid move but I'm not sure if they had any other option. nobody sang the national anthem at the start of the match even though they were under pressure from the regime to do so.

it could be the worst defeat of history but that penalty took that title away I still don't know why Queiroz started the match with this lineup. Iran with Queiroz conceded 6 goals in 6 matches in two previous WCs and we faced likes of Messi and Ronaldo. I'm sure we can play much better in defense with couple of changes and having a proper left back (England scored 3 goals in 2nd half from that area) but I think he has to use his 3rd GK in the next match. Beiro is probably out with a broken nose, Hosseini shouldn't play after conceding 6 goals ... 3rd goalie brought him luck with Egypt

I don't think so. nobody could save the team today, specially Skocic. you really don't know how grave is the situation inside the country. hard to play football when 9 years old kid is being killed in your country. and for some reasons I can't understand everybody started hating the team for being "their team" and not the national team. the first half was humiliating but not surprising, the key for Iran was keeping focus (like what they did against Argentina in 2014 and Spain in 2018) which they didn't even have before the start. and Beiranvand's injury was the last nail to the coffin. and this is not even our best starting lineup. I don't know what CQ was thinking to change both CBs.

he is going all defense, he has 8 defensive (DF or defensive midfielder) players in his 10-man squad (not counting GK) and yeah Maguire is our only hope to score

just saw the starting 11. we knew Queiroz always loves to surprise everybody with his starting lineup but this one is something else. if I had to guess I would name only 3 or 4 of these 11 guys to start. I don't know, maybe he has a secret plan

the first time I saw Don Vito on TV was 2017 World Champs semifinal against a Korean and he was very very bad in that match. like an amateur, even the Iranian commentators made fun of him (they always do stupid things like this) like who the hell is this guy, does he even know the sport? (he still ended up with a bronze but that specific match was disastrous) but look where is him now. Olympic Gold + World Championship Gold

so ... the next match is Iran vs England. I always wanted to see this match but not in this current situation. our players are under huge huge pressure to do (or not to do) something from both sides, the football itself is secondary right now. personally I only expect them to play football (but I know the majority don't think like me and except much more) few things happened in past few days, I can even say more than half the people I know actually want the team to lose because of that which is very sad because football NT was probably the only thing that would make the whole nation united. our captain today tried to somehow make up for that by even starting his press conference with the "God of rainbows" (which has political meanings nowadays) speaking of football. I just hope they can avoid an early goal. that may lead to an ugly scoreline. but this is football nothing is impossible. and England sucks in this sport after all

They fixed the problem since yesterday and now almost all head kicks register properly I wish they could do that earlier. lots of athletes lost their rightful medals just because Daedo system doesn't work properly in altitude ? (was that the reason ? or the humidity ? or lack of it ?) until 2 days ago we had something like 5-6 video replay challenges per match. but from yesterday till now it's averagely less than 1 per match.

Qatar won the last Asian Cup . they deserve some credit but yes I believe that was a one time thing. they can't and won't beat Iraq, Korea and Japan back to back if they play again. Qatar isn't this bad, they just don't have the experience of playing against non-Asian teams in serious competitions (you can play 1000 friendlies but that won't necessarily prepare you for a serious match)

Peru was already eliminated before that match and FRG/AUT in 1982 was a completely different case. something like DEN/SWE 2-2 in Euro 2004. that's somehow match fixing but that's not losing on purpose for money. and yeah of course I know bad officiating and corrupt referees happen . that's obvious. I was only talking about team A losing on purpose to team B only because of money while both teams still have chance to advance. I believe that's impossible at the World Cup when you know your whole nation are watching you.

I can't even imagine that a team can sell a World Cup match. yeah maybe it happens in one of millions boring club matches in a year (not a fan of watching the same teams playing each other 10 times a year) but World Cup is a different thing, nobody sells a WC match. I don't think Qatar can beat Ecuador but if they do that will be because of their own abilities (and maybe some referee's help ) Ecuador is not going to lose intentionally. beside that It's almost impossible to do match fixing in the biggest stage, where everybody watches every single steps. it's a team sport, it's not tennis when you can lose on purpose and nobody even notices.