Coachless Iran name depleted squad for u-22 Asian Cup

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, A day after Alireza Mansourian’s resignation as Iran’s u-22 headcoach, Iran named a heavily depleted squad for the first AFC u-22 Championship in Oman this month.

Background of the weakened squad and Mansourian’s decision to leave his post is the refusal of some IPL clubs, mainly Tehran giants Persepolis, to release their players during the league season.

Indeed, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has once more shown little professionalism in their scheduling of tournaments, setting up such a competition just five months ahead of a FIFA World Cup and completely outside of the FIFA schedule.

The AFC have already complicated the World Cup preparations for Iran, Japan, Australia and South Korea by scheduling the AFC Champions League deeply into May and have put an extra burden on Iran by occupying four FIFA matchdays since June 2013 with AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.

Iran boss Carlos Queiroz has repeatedly criticized the poor scheduling and already put the Iranian clubs under pressure by demanding all players to prematurely leave their clubs in April, despite the ongoing Champions League, and by having the Iranian league’s schedule being tightened in order to ensure the perfect preparations for Brazil 2014.

The developments prompted some clubs to take a rather aggressive stance against giving up some of their young key players in January.

Long list of prominent absentees

Persepolis refused to let profilic playmakers Payam Sadeghian and Mohsen Mosalman go, alongside talented wingers Omid Alishah and Milad Gharibi.

Foolad Khuzestan captain and midfielder Bakhtiar Rahmani also has to stay with his club while Sepahan Esfahan leftwinger Yaghoub Karimi suffered the same fate.

Also European based due Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Sardar Azmoun are not available, leaving a skeleton team, which at least will have the first choice defense as well as striking ace Kaveh Rezaei from Saipa Tehran and Portugal based midfielder Afshin Esmaeilzadeh at disposal, to deal with a “group of death” with Japan, Australia and Kuwait.

Reportedly, former assistant coach to Branko Ivankovic at Team Melli, Human Afazeli, will take over the tough task to guide the team through this tournament.

Afazeli had already coached the u-23 team on interim basis between 2010 and 2011 before resigning due to what he called “lack of support” for ‘Team Omid’.

Iran will start the tournament versus Japan on January 12, then play Australia January 14 before concluding the group stage versus Kuwait again only two days later.

While the next edition of the competition will also solve as Olympic qualifying tournament for Asia, this time around there is nothing but continental glory at stake.

Below comes the list of invited players.

Naft Tehran (3): Alireza Beiranvand, Amin Hajmohammadi, Morteza Pouraliganji
Zob Ahan (1): Mohammad-Reza Khanzadeh
Foolad (1): Shahab Karami
Perspolis (1): Amir Abedzadeh
Gostaresh Foolad (1): Fardin Abedini
Mes Kerman (2): Vahid Esmaeilbeigi, Ahmad Zenderouh
Fajr (1): Masoud Rigi
Malavan (1): Mehdi Shiri
Tractor (2): Shahriar Shirvand, Navid Khoshhava
Sepahan (2): Amin Jahanalian, Ehsan Pahlevan
Rah Ahan (1): Behnam Barzay
Saipa (1): Kaveh Rezaei
Beira-Mar (1): Afshin Esmaeilzadeh
Moghavemat Tehran (1): Amir Arsalan Motahari
Mes Songon (1): Farzin Karousian
Iranjavan Bushehr (1): Mehdi Taremi
Parseh (2): Peyman Miri, Ammar Nikkar