Coaching staff all has US ties

this year is the emphasis on offense brought by new coach Carlos Queiroz.

Queiroz, a Portuguese national, took over the team in April. Under him, Team Melli has not lost a single match in 10 outings and has scored 38 goals against only three given up. The next match in Team Melli’s World Cup pursuit is Friday, November 11, against Bahrain in Bahrain. Last month, Team Melli beat Bahrain 6-0 in Tehran. Iran plays Indonesia November 15 in Jakarta.

Javad Nekounam, who plays professionally for Osasuna of Spain, says Queiroz has brought an offensive mentality to the team that didn’t exist before.

Nekounam told FIFA.com that Queiroz believes the attack is Iran’s strength. “Before, we used to focus more on defending. But Queiroz wants us to attack more,” Nekounam said. “He believes attacking is Iran’s main strength and that we can win more matches that way. He wants us to get into the box a bit more.

While the national team has to be comprised entirely of Iranian nationals, the coaching squad is largely non-Iranian. And what links those five men is that they all have experience in American soccer. Only one of the five is Iranian—but he was born in the United States.

The Washington Post reported recently that during a lunch in Tehran Queiroz turned to his assistants and asked: “What do we all have in common?”

“We all had connections to American soccer,” Utah-born Omid Namazi told the Post in a phone interview last month.

Queiroz, 58, a former Real Madrid coach and Manchester United assistant, coached the New York/New Jersey Metro-Stars (now the New York Red Bulls) in their inaugural 1996 season and worked with the US Soccer Federation in player and team development.

Antonio Simoes, 67, also a native of Portugal, played in the North American Soccer League and Major Indoor Soccer League, then coached at various levels in the United States.

Dan Gaspar, 56, is a former head coach at the University of Hartford and well-known goalkeeping specialist. He was born in Connecticut and is an American of Portuguese ethnicity.

Belfast-born Mick McDer-mott, 45, played in a lower tier of the US soccer pyramid and served as an assistant at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut and at Oregon State. He is Iran’s strength and conditioning coach.

Omid Namazi, 46, is the only member of the staff with Iranian family roots. Born in Utah, where his father attended college, Namazi lived in Tehran most of his youth before returning to the United States with his family and settling in the Washington, DC, area. He studied and played at West Virginia University.

His portfolio is dotted with 15 US pro teams in 17 years, an eclectic mix of indoor and outdoor outfits. He has also served as head coach of six US teams, most recently the Chicago Red Stars in Women’s Professional Soccer in 2010. His ties to Queiroz date to the MetroStars, for whom Namazi made one appearance in 1996.

Namazi, who visits his wife and children in New Jersey whenever possible, holds dual citizenship, but when traveling with the Iranian team, he often uses his US passport.

“The political issues haven’t come up while I’ve been here,” he told the Post. “The most difficult part is that, here I am, an American taking over in a job that’s usually for an Iranian. So, at the beginning, there was a lot of people saying, ‘Who is this guy?’ Queiroz has a lot of confidence in me, and people see that now, so it has helped in being accepted.”

Namazi said, “It is an interesting time. Now that Queiroz has come in, there’s a lot of hope. People are getting excited again. Expectations are going up.”