November 22-2013
The Iran national soccer team won two games the past week, clinching a slot in the Asian Cup finals to be played in Australia in 2015.
Iran won both of its matches rather easily and convincingly; both were won by three-goal margins. And both were away games.
Friday, Iran defeated Thailand in Bangkok 3-0. And Tuesday, it defeated Lebanon in Beirut 4-1.
The Beirut game was played just hours after bombers struck the Iranian embassy in Beirut. The game went ahead, but security officials, fearing trouble in the stadium, locked out the fans and made the teams play in an empty and quiet stadium.
Coach Carlos Queiroz finally got a full complement of expats playing for him as he has long wished.
Steven Beitashour, who was born in San Jose, California, of Iranian parents and plays professionally for the San Jose Earthquakes, played all of both games on defense. He had played once before for Iran.
Daniel Davari, who was born in Germany of an Iranian father and a Polish mother, played in goal for Iran for the first time. He had not played for Iran before. He played both games and gave up but one goal.
Reza Ghoochan-nejad, who was born in Mashhad but is a Dutch citizen and plays professionally in Belgian, has played for the national team before. He played all of the two games this past week and scored one goal in each.
Ashkan Dejagah, who was born in Tehran but is now a German citizen, has played several games for Iran and scored once in each game this past week. He previously had played for the German youth teams but is now committed to Iran. He plays professionally for Fulham in Britain, but has not seen a lot of playing time there.
In defeating Thailand 3-0 Friday, goals were scored by Dejagah (28th minute), Ghoochan-nejad (43rd) and Ali-Reza Jahanbakhsh (94th).
In defeating Lebanon 4-1 Tuesday, Iran’s goals were scored by Amir-Hossain Sadeqi (39th minute), Dejagah (50th), Javad Nekounam (54th) and Goochan-nejad (64th). Lebanon got a concessionary goal in the 79th minute.
Coach Queiroz had been publicly expressing concern—and anger at the Iranian government for cutting soccer funds—because Iran went into these recent games with very limited practice as the team has no money to travel abroad for friendly matches. But Thailand and Lebanon provided little competition—their 10 games combined in this Asian Cup round has seen only a solitary victory, and that was by Lebanon over Thailand.
The top two teams in each group advance. The standings box shows which teams have qualified so far. There are no surprises so far. In addition, the third-placed team with the best record will also advance. The last matches will be played March 5.
Group A is in some disarray because Jordan placed fifth in Asia for the World Cup and is playing the fifth-placed team from Latin American, Uruguay, last week and this to decide which will go to the World Cup finals. So Jordan’s Asian Cup games for this month have been rescheduled for next year. Jordan lost to Uruguay 5-0 last week in Jordan and played the return leg in Uruguay after the Iran Times went to press.