{"id":31350,"date":"2018-04-09T09:35:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T16:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31350"},"modified":"2018-04-09T09:35:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T16:35:03","slug":"carlos-queiroz-monitoring-wonderkid-daniel-arzani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/04\/09\/carlos-queiroz-monitoring-wonderkid-daniel-arzani\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Queiroz monitoring wonderkid Daniel Arzani"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iran national football team coach Carlos Queiroz is monitoring Melbourne City starlet Daniel Arzani, who is eligible to play for Team Melli.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Queiroz has admitted 19-year-old Australian Arzani is a player he and his staff are following \u201cvery closely\u201d as the international tug-of-war for the Melbourne City star continues.<\/p>\n

The international future of Arzani, who is eligible to play for both Australia and Iran, where he was born before moving to Australia as a young child, has been the subject of much speculation over the last few months since he burst onto the scene with Melbourne City with a series of eye-catching performances.<\/p>\n

Arzani, who has represented Australia at Under-17, U-20 and U-23 level, is yet to make any firm commitment either way regarding his senior international future, although he told reporters in Australia in February that he is leaning towards a future in green and gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for me I am leaning a bit more towards Australia,\u201d Arzani said. \u201cI grew up here, I played all my football here and went to the AIS [Australian Institute of Sports]. I have a lot of memories here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen, however, whether Bert van Marwijk will heed the calls from experts and former Socceroos alike, and select Iranian-born Arzani \u2013 who says he still speaks Persian at home with his parents \u2013 in his 23-man squad for 2018 FIFA World Cup when he names his squad next month.<\/p>\n

Until then, or until Arzani makes public his final decision, Iran remain in the hunt and Queiroz told FOX Sports Asia in an exclusive interview that he is a player that is very much on their radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe follow with all the details all national team players,\u201d Queiroz said. \u201cAnd with the player you mentioned [Arzani] we\u2019ve been following him very closely, with full details of every single game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have direct observations and analysis, and video analysis, of every single game of all national team players and he is part of our system. We\u2019ve been watching very closely, we\u2019ve been analyzing all the games he\u2019s been playing. We have deep research and analysis on him, and all the other players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end the decision will be made on the capabilities and skills and character of each player to be part of the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queiroz added, however, that he wouldn\u2019t select Arzani simply to \u201clock him in\u201d to playing for Iran, saying he\u2019s seen that happen with other players in the past and it\u2019s not something he as a coach is comfortable with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my long experience with international football players, especially the players that have the possibility to choose which national team they can play, I never challenge one player to play with the national team that I\u2019m working for if I\u2019m not sure that he has the real possibility to have an impact on the success of the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has happened with other Portuguese players that they call them to other national teams to stop them playing for Portugal, and I\u2019ve always thought that was not a good move, not a correct and honest move.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I will never do that with other players, because I\u2019ll feel bad personally if I challenge a player to play for Iran, and after me or any coach stops coaching the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision is very complex and it\u2019s a big decision and we can only take this decision if we are absolutely sure that this player will have a huge impact with the national team of Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the 65-year-old, now in his seventh year in charge of Iran, didn\u2019t want to be drawn into talking specifically about what he liked about Arzani, he still let it be known he saw him as someone with that potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go into full details because I don\u2019t do that for any other player,\u201d he said. \u201cBut of course, it\u2019s obvious that if we are following him game after game it\u2019s because we recognize he\u2019s a player with good potential.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iran national football team coach Carlos Queiroz is monitoring Melbourne City…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":31351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89,91,93,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c20-other-news","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":2722,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31350","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=31350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31352,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31350\/revisions\/31352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}