Sports > Football > IRAN FOOTBALL ELIMINATED FROM OLYMPICS 2008 BY AFSHIN DASTAFSHAN
Why Iran football failed again?
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Having dropped 7 points in their first three Olympics 2008 qualifying matches Iran were struggling to qualify for Beijing 2008 finals. A comprehensive 3-0 win over Jordan in match 4 coupled with Australia’s defeat to Saudi Arabia on the same day threw Iran under 23 side (Omid Team) a lifeline; a win over Australia in match 5 would mean proceeding to final round qualifiers with a game in hand while defeat to Australia would have meant elimination from the Olympics.
But the odds were against Iran having to play Australia in Adelaide in match 5 on May 17th. Australian players had height advantage over the Iranians, they capitalised on their physical advantage early in the match taking the lead after 3 minutes with Aaron Downes scoring with a header. Less than a minute later Iran were level with Vahid Amraei bursting through Australian defence and firing home from the edge of the penalty box.
Australia put Iran under pressure during most of the first half and earned over ten corner kicks compared to Iran’s none, a mistimed tackle by Hussein Kaebi just inside Iran’s penalty box gave Australia a late penalty in the first half, Mark Bridge converted the kick, the first half ended 2-1 to Australia. The socceroos added a third in the second half and despite having a player sent off and Iran bringing on two more attacking players Iran failed to score again, the match ended 3-1 to Australia, Iran cannot progress to final round qualifiers even if they win their last match against Saudi Arabia.
4,000 Iranian fans living in Australia attended the match to support Iran at the 20,000 capacity Hindmarsh Stadium in Adelaide Australia; there were nearly 6,500 fans in the stadium in total. It is interesting that more Iranian fans (4,000) turned up to support Iran in Adelaide than they did in the first leg of this tie played at home in Tehran, in a city with a population of 14 million only 1,800 Iranian fans turned up to support their Omid Team at the 100,000 capacity Azadi stadium! Clearly the fans showed their dismay and anger at the mess and management incompetence in Iran football by staying away from the stadium.
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Iran Omid team paid the ultimate price for the failure of Iran's football federation as well as Iran’s Olympics committee to run and support the under 23 side throughout the years with long term plans, the under 23 side also known as the Omid Team is normally assembled ahead of official tournaments without sufficient training or preparatory friendly games. Neither the players nor the coach Vingo Begovic who has only been in charge of the Omid team for four months could be blamed for the team's failure to reach the Olympic finals, they did their best in the limited time they had available. What was missing was professional competent management at the top that failed to look ahead to the Olympics two or three years in advance. Iran football has not qualified for the Olympics since Montreal in 1976 and they will not be in Beijing 2008, if Iranian football authorities and Iran’s Olympic Committee wish their Omid Team to qualify for London Olympics in 2012 then they will need to plan ahead by two or three years (not weeks), provide logistics, regular training and team practice sessions, arrange friendly matches against other countries and for clubs to release their Omid Team players for such warm-up matches and training sessions.
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