{"id":29366,"date":"2017-10-09T21:44:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T04:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=29366"},"modified":"2017-10-09T21:48:38","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T04:48:38","slug":"fifa-u-17-world-cup-2017-iran-bank-on-defence-against-germanys-strike-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2017\/10\/09\/fifa-u-17-world-cup-2017-iran-bank-on-defence-against-germanys-strike-force\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017: Iran bank on defence against Germany\u2019s strike force"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indian Express – MARGAO, Iran have been one of Asia\u2019s top teams for years now, and Chamanian says countries from this continent need to keep chipping away to find eventual success.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abbas Chamanian comes from Mashhad, the city known for the revered Imam Reza shrine, the world\u2019s largest mosque. Commonly believed to be the spiritual capital of Iran, the city boasts centuries of history, art and culture \u2013 and some of the country\u2019s top poets, writers, craftsmen, musicians, and engineers.<\/p>\n

Many regimes came and ruled and went from here \u2013 Arabs, Turks, Mongols and Afghans, each changing, adding to, tweaking the culture of the city on the ancient Silk Route. \u201cIt\u2019s a holy city and it also learned from everyone,\u201d the 54-year-old Chamanian opens. Just like football, and the Iran U 17 coach\u2019s own journey in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou pick what you like and can from every influence,\u201d says the former physical education degree holder, who believed every passion needed to be formally learned, and his love for football since age 5 too needed honing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I used to be a Johann Cryuff fan. But you don\u2019t say no to knowledge. So now, I learn from Iran head coach Carlos Queiroz about the discipline, from Pep Guardiola the beauty of football, from Mourinho how to grit it out and struggle and from Klopp about the fast attack,\u201d he adds excitedly of how open-source his subject is, lending itself to being universally interpreted. \u201cI want Iran to play fast attacking football,\u201d he says ahead of Iran\u2019s crucial group game against Germany.<\/p>\n

He might look like a mix of military drill master and a strict mathematics professor (his charges indeed don\u2019t proceed to lunch or breakfast till he nods, and altogether don\u2019t talk in the team bus as soon as he\u2019s on board), but he\u2019s a strategist at heart who loves nothing more than to plot ways to get the Asian giants to progress further than ever before. Not too deep into diagnostic football or the schmaltz of video analysis, he nevertheless watches a lot of games and stays up-to-date with all the literature of football. Having coached a variety of club sides in Iran, as well as earlier stints with the U 20 and U 17s, he reckons he can out-think most of his rival coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have perfect plans to attack Germany,\u201d he\u2019d said with a twinkle in the eye, soon after explaining how his forwards and midfield had smartly used spaces between the big Guinean forwards to negate the physical advantage of the Africans whom they beat 3-1. The team has also bought into the idea that good tackling doesn\u2019t need massive size \u2013 it just needs good tackling skills, even skills possessed by shorter wrestlers can come in handy, while finding gaps in both offense and defense.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s U 17s \u2013 almost the same team as the U16s last year in Goa\u2019s AFC \u2013 play the high passing game. Though Mohammad Sharifi is the anointed star of the team, Chamanian insists that any of the defenders Shariati, Esmael Zadeh or midfielder Namdari or forward Sayyad as well as custodian Gholam Zadeh are good enough to make the senior team in a few years\u2019 time \u2013 if not sooner.<\/p>\n

Iran has relied recently on foreign born or reared ethnically Iranian players with Ashkan Dejageh \u2013 the former German U 21 player, being the latest. \u201cWe\u2019ve spoken to everyone while preparing for Germany,\u201d he says, smiling cryptically.<\/p>\n

Strong backline<\/strong><\/p>\n

Germany might have gotten over their nerves since the start against Costa Rica but they will be up against an organised Iran defense, testing their goal scoring itch, which was frustrated by the south Americans. Jann-Fiete Arp and Elias Abouchabaka will be keen to get cracking after they failed to find the net and finish their moves.<\/p>\n

The Iranian colts lost the Asian U 16 final to Iraq on penalties, and Chamanian says he had told his players that till full-time they had been level with their opponents. \u201cAt the U 17 stage, the biggest challenge is to prepare these guys mentally,\u201d he says, not having known losses in his second stint, save the one to Iraq. \u201cAlmost 100 percent record, and it\u2019s because of the discipline,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Iranian team is not really spotted with cell-phones once they step out of their rooms, and Sharifi is said to sport maturity well beyond his years, and goof around only when everyone else falls quiet. \u201cWe stress that we are not just about one player. No one wins with one star player only,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Iran have been one of Asia\u2019s top teams for years now, and Chamanian says countries from this continent need to keep chipping away to find eventual success.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur federation is disciplined, and our boys will keep improving. One day certainly an Asian team will be winners,\u201d he stresses. \u201cI can say India is on the right track \u2013 with a league and stadiums and facilities. We were like India at one stage, so it\u2019s a graph,\u201d he adds, pleading patience and persistence.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeamwork, discipline and improving individual skills, it\u2019s not rocket science. But it\u2019s a good journey,\u201d he says. \u201cEven today, Iran considers every team as a challenge. The lower ranked the teams, the greater the danger. So the guard\u2019s never down \u2013 even in friendlies,\u201d he says. The team had a 4-0 win in one such friendly against France in Spain, though Germany will be his biggest challenge in his second stint.<\/p>\n

Football is big in Iran, and commensurately the players court fame and equal social responsibility. \u201cFootball is not separate from international politics. We can\u2019t pretend they\u2019re different,\u201d he says with a smile \u2013 cryptic not for the first time. \u201cThankfully in Iran there\u2019s support from the rulers,\u201d he ends diplomatically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indian Express – MARGAO, Iran have been one of Asia\u2019s top teams for years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":29367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,170,91,86,110,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-iran-u17","category-c20-other-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup","category-c14-youth-teams"],"views":2707,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}