{"id":31374,"date":"2018-04-12T05:19:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T12:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31374"},"modified":"2018-04-12T05:19:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T12:19:14","slug":"dilemma-for-arzani-as-iran-ponders-poaching-young-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/04\/12\/dilemma-for-arzani-as-iran-ponders-poaching-young-gun\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Dilemma’ for Arzani as Iran ponders poaching young gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

TheWorldGame<\/a> – Pressure is growing on Bert van Marwijk to roll the dice and take Daniel Arzani to the FIFA World Cup, with a source close to the Iranian-born teenage star declining to rule out a switch to Team Melli amid declarations from coach Carlos Queiroz that he is \u201cbeing watched closely\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Though the Melbourne City sensation has represented Australia at Under-17, U-20 and U-23 level, he missed out on van Marwijk\u2019s squad for last month\u2019s friendlies against Norway and Colombia, and the prospect of being lured by the land of his lineage remains very real, with Iran also having qualified for Russia 2018.<\/p>\n

Arzani, 19, stated publicly in February that he\u2019s leaning towards Australia, with the 23-man World Cup squad to be announced next week.<\/p>\n

But the admission from Queiroz that Arzani is on his radar for Russia has sparked new concerns that a rare talent could be lost to Australia, unless van Marwijk decides to take a leap of faith.<\/p>\n

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Iran monitoring Arzani ‘very closely’, reveals coach Queiroz<\/div>\n
Melbourne City young gun Daniel Arzani is under “direct observations and analysis” by Iran, national team coach Carlos Queiroz has revealed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cOf course Daniel would love to have been part of van Marwijk\u2019s first camp but it wasn\u2019t to be,\u201d the source close to Arzani said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis first priority is really Australia and like any player he\u2019s dreaming about playing at a World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully he\u2019ll be looked at again with fresh eyes by van Marwijk because it\u2019s important to send a positive message to young Australian players who show they have significant talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dual nationality Arzani didn\u2019t even make a preliminary list of 39 players for last month\u2019s matches, and a results-driven van Marwijk does not see his role with the green and gold as fostering youth development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say what would happen if Iran did make an approach ahead of the World Cup to bring him on board, and Australia chose not to,\u201d added the source.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sort of scenario would give any player a tough decision to make. It would be a dilemma.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut right now, he\u2019s just concentrating on doing everything he can to help Melbourne City produce something special in the finals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queiroz told Fox Sports Asia<\/em> earlier this week: \u201cWe follow with all the details all national team players.<\/p>\n

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Van Marwijk must send an SOS to Arzani, insists Lazaridis<\/div>\n
Socceroos great Stan Lazaridis has called on Bert van Marwijk to take a punt on exciting teenager Daniel Arzani, and reap the rewards at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cAnd with Arzani, we\u2019ve been following him very closely.<\/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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been watching very closely, we\u2019ve been analysing all the games he\u2019s been playing. We have deep research and analysis on him, and all the other players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham Arnold, who will succeed van Marwijk after Russia and lead Australia into January\u2019s AFC Asian Cup in the UAE, has already announced his intention to call up Arzani.<\/p>\n

Whether or not it will then be too late remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Iran have been drawn in the same group as Morocco, Spain and Portugal in June, while Australia will take on France, Denmark and Peru.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TheWorldGame – Pressure is growing on Bert van Marwijk to roll the dice and take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":3071,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31374","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31376,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31374\/revisions\/31376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}