July 29, 2022
The Croatian coach of Iran’s national soccer team, Dragan Skocic, has been fired from the team, then re-hired a week later, but is expected to be re-fired in another few weeks.
Many view this as an act of stupidity, holding Iran up to ridicule throughout the soccer world.
With just four months to go before Iran’s first game in the World Cup finals, the Football Federation sacked Skocic without having a successor in hand.
News reports said the leadership of Iranian soccer was dissatisfied with Skocic’s performance, pointing out that he had failed to win two of the national team’s three most recent games. But Skocic, 53, has won 15 of the 18 national team games he has coached and is the national team’s winningest coach in history.
Other reports have spoken of loud opposition to Skocic from some team members—and loud support from other team members over his coaching methods, not further described.
Many news reports said Sports Minister Hamid Sajadi leads the forces for ousting Skocic. But the ministry denied that. The ministry is very aware that FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, is staunchly opposed to government interference in national soccer programs and suspended Iran briefly in 2006 for just such interference.
Some reports said senior players like Sardar Azmoun and Alireza Beiranvand were lobbying on behalf of Skocic and opposed any change in coach before the World Cup. Those reports said major players including Mehdi Taremi, Ehsan Hajsafi, Karim Ansarifar and Alireza Jahanbakhsh were critical of Skocic and wanted him gone.
A spokesman for the Football Federation said the federation’s Technical Committee had decided that Skocic was “not qualified” to lead the team in the World Cup. He did not explain what made Skocic unqualified.
After the Technical Committee voted to fire Skocic, the Board of Directors of the Football Federation met and said the Technical Committee lacked the authority to fire a coach. The Board of Directors ruled that Skocic remained coach and he agreed to stay.
But elections for a new Football Federation president and Board will be held August 30 and news reports say Skocic will likely be fired after that. And there is much lobbying to name an Iranian national as coach, not a foreigner.
Then, in mid-July, Hajsafi, Ansarifar and Jahanbakhsh—the three captains of the national team—made their opposition to Skocic public. But they also said he should continue to coach the team through the end of the World Cup. Taremi was the only player who has publicly said he wants Skocic dismissed immediately.
Shaygan Banisaeid, an Iranian coach on the staff of Britain’s Arsenal professional team, told The Guardian, “Some people … believe that the Iranian government wants to play at the World Cup against political opponents England and the USA with an Iranian coach so they can show that we are a proud nation fighting against our big rivals with our own people.”
But Banisaeid also said Iran’s soccer fans don’t see it that way. “Now everyone is so disappointed and there is not much hope among the public. It’s heartbreaking for the nation.”
A number of prominent Iranian coaches, including Ali Daei, have reportedly been approached and refused the job, presumably because there is little time left to prepare for the Cup finals.
Sports fans were generally appalled by the upheaval with Iran’s first World Cup match scheduled for November 21 and no coach on hand and no friendly matches on the books to get the team playing as a team.
Skocic took over the national team in February 2020 from Marc Wilmots, who had led the team for only a few months and left it in third place in the elimination round standings. Skocic then raised the team to first place.
Skocic led the team to a blistering record of 15 wins, one tie and two losses. The last match, a friendly with Algeria, ended in a 2-1 loss (not 1-0 as wrongly reported in the last issue of the Iran Times) and prompted many soccer commentators to slam Skocic for incompetence and ineptitude.
Before taking over the national team, the Croatian had spent seven years coaching professional clubs in Iran’s domestic league.
Skocic’s 83 percent winning record as national team coach is by far the best of any fulltime coach of the national team. By comparison, Carlos Queiroz won 60 percent of his matches and Daei won 63 percent.
