2026 AFC U-23 Asian Cup Qualification Thread

[The]

I don't get it. He couldn't even get a PGPL contract? He was still good last time I saw him play.

Depends on his contract with Leganes. I assume they want a fee.

Either that or his injury is a lot worse than initially reported and nobody wants to touch him.

[Keano]

Some of his moves remind me of Ali Karimi's brilliance

[perspolis#1]

38 minutes in and its still 0-0 with Guam

[perspolis#1]

Absolutely crazy long shot goal by I think Safari?

1-0 Iran 44th minute. A couple of 1v1s missed by Iran also

[perspolis#1]

Team is being very frustrating choosing to do stepovers and skill flicks and half turn bicycle kicks instead of just running up the score with easy goals.

These are IQ issues in Iranian football that affect us through youth, PGPL and Team Melli

[perspolis#1]

3-0 Iran Minute 72nd minute. Need to run the score up as much as possible in case we get 2nd place

[perspolis#1]

6-0 Iran FT

Last goal was a sweet outside the box shot by Hosseinejad (ALO AGHA AMIR INO MIKHOONI?)

[PEJ]

Kasra Taheri with a hat trick playing one half. The guy reminds me of a young Sradar. His positioning around the goal is impeccable for such a young guy. This game is a reminder to everyone why Hosseinnejad isn’t playing with TM. While he had flashes, he was just average. These are the games where a player like him just has to dominate.

[perspolis#1]

Kasra Taheri with a hat trick playing one half. The guy reminds me of a young Sradar. His positioning around the goal is impeccable for such a young guy. This game is a reminder to everyone why Hosseinnejad isn’t playing with TM. While he had flashes, he was just average. These are the games where a player like him just has to dominate.

To be fair Saharkhizan despite being invited to TM at times, also made a goal line clearance for Guam today

[Pluto2000]

This game is a reminder to everyone why Hosseinnejad isn’t playing with TM. While he had flashes, he was just average. These are the games where a player like him just has to dominate.

Were we watching the same game? He had a bunch of key passes that others couldn't finish. He was absolutely delivering things on a platter for our forwards. Hes been dropping deep and distributing the ball both games. His passing and dribbling on the ball is better than any current TM midfielder by a wide margin unless we're talking young Ghoddos or 2019 Eza.

Do we need him to play like prime Zlatan before we call him up over some 30 year old like Cheshmi/ Karimi/Noorafkan?

[perspolis#1]

Hong Kong-UAE is 0-0 at Halftime. If they can hold on for another half, Iran will be first place going into the last match day

[perspolis#1]

UAE got their goal. Unless anything changes we will be in 2nd place on GD going into last match day

[PEJ]

Were we watching the same game? He had a bunch of key passes that others couldn't finish. He was absolutely delivering things on a platter for our forwards. Hes been dropping deep and distributing the ball both games. His passing and dribbling on the ball is better than any current TM midfielder by a wide margin unless we're talking young Ghoddos or 2019 Eza.

Do we need him to play like prime Zlatan before we call him up over some 30 year old like Cheshmi/ Karimi/Noorafkan?

like I said he flashes. By no means he was dominant.

While I do agree that he should probably get more than garbage minutes with the seniors, he is in no shape ready to take over a spot permanently in TM.

[perspolis#1]

UAE won 2-0 so they are in first place on GD. We play UAE on Tuesday.

This is the ranking of the 2nd place teams in case we fail to beat UAE on Tuesday.

The top 4 out of the best 2nd place teams go through

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_AFC_U-23_Asian_Cup_qualification#Ranking_of_second-placed_teams

China on 6pts with GD +11
Iran on 6pts with GD+10
Turkmenistan on 6pts with GD +6
Yemen on 6pts with GD+2
------
The rest have only 4 points so far.

Realisticaly a tie should be enough for us to go through but if we are serious about going to the Olympics we should beat UAE

[The]

Kasra Taheri with a hat trick playing one half. The guy reminds me of a young Sradar. His positioning around the goal is impeccable for such a young guy. This game is a reminder to everyone why Hosseinnejad isn’t playing with TM. While he had flashes, he was just average. These are the games where a player like him just has to dominate.

Kasra has one thing Sardar doesn't. He hustles and presses really well. He's like a combo of Kaveh Rezaei and Sardar.