{"id":46735,"date":"2022-09-12T07:32:39","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=46735"},"modified":"2022-09-12T07:32:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:32:41","slug":"skocic-was-warned-he-wouldnt-lead-tm-at-wc-vinko-begovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2022\/09\/12\/skocic-was-warned-he-wouldnt-lead-tm-at-wc-vinko-begovic\/","title":{"rendered":"Sko\u010di\u0107 was warned he wouldn’t lead TM at WC: Vinko Begovi\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sportske.jutarnji.hr – SPLIT, Portugal’s Carlos Queiroz\u00a0will lead Iran at the World Cup, his assistant will be the former national team representative Javad Nekounam, who is being prepared as a successor, and\u00a0Dragan Sko\u010di\u0107\u00a0was fired two months before the World Cup in Qatar.\u00a0He was removed by the new president of the Association,\u00a0Mehdi Taj.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Croatian coach\u00a0Vinko Begovi\u0107\u00a0knows the conditions in Iran very well because he worked there from 2000 to the end of 2019, with minor interruptions when he was in the UAE and Qatar.\u00a0He led the biggest clubs like\u00a0Persepolis, but also led smaller ones like\u00a0Foolad, Pas Hamedan,\u00a0Gol Gohar. He was also the coach of the Olympic team.\u00a0He says that Iranian journalists contacted him to comment on current events.\u00a0Begovi\u0107\u00a0from Split, who is 74 years old, recalled that\u00a0Tomislav\u00a0Ivi\u0107\u00a0was also dismissed before the World Cup in 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Four months ago, I told Sko\u010di\u0107: “Be prepared that they won’t let you lead the national team at the World Cup.”\u00a0It was clear to me. I mentioned to him the example of the late Ivic, who was removed two weeks before the 1998 WC in France.\u00a0He replied that he was aware of that, but he would continue to work as if he was going to Qatar.\u00a0He survived a coup, but new elections took place in the Federation there, on the eve of which Taj said clearly and loudly that Sko\u010di\u0107 would not remain a coach if he won.\u00a0That’s what happened – Begovi\u0107 told us and went back to 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– They were in a group with Germany, Yugoslavia, and the United States.\u00a0Politics in Iran launched the thesis that the match against America must be led by an Iranian coach.\u00a0And what happened, Ivi\u0107 arranged a meeting with Roma, and knowing that rival scouts were following him, he mixed up the team and lost 6:1.\u00a0He told me that personally.\u00a0After that, there was tremendous political pressure that came from the state parliament to the president of the federation, who removed Ivi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only Croatian coach who led them to the World Cup was Branko Ivankovi\u0107 in 2006, but certain circles wanted to “negotiate” with him too…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Branko made an excellent result, but there was a rush, a criticism that he is not a qualified coach.\u00a0Fortunately, he had the president of the federation, Mohammad Dadkan, who firmly stood behind him, as well as some people from politics, although even then there was a big fight in the parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after the WC, apart from Ivankovi\u0107, Dadkan was also a former player.\u00a0In the group with Portugal, Mexico, and Angola, they won one point and the last place.\u00a0It was also an indication of how precarious the involvement in the Iranian national team is…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Sko\u010di\u0107 did a phenomenal job and confirmed the huge impression that the Croatian coaches left in Iran.\u00a0A lot of us were there, starting with Stanko Poklepovi\u0107, Tomislav Ivi\u0107.\u00a0\u0106ire Bla\u017eevi\u0107, Luka Bona\u010di\u0107, Zlatko Kranj\u010dar, Mladen Fran\u010di\u0107, of course Branko Ivankovi\u0107. We had a big influence, we gave them more top players and national team members than all foreign coaches combined.\u00a0I claim that responsibly.\u00a0The new president Taj said in the campaign that Sko\u010di\u0107 has no experience and is not good enough to lead the team at the WC, which of course is not true.\u00a0There was a struggle over the successor, some were looking for an Iranian, they took Quairoz as a compromise, who had already led them twice at the WC and never made it past the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How was Sko\u010di\u0107 good enough to win Qatar, but now he’s not?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

– That’s what I told the Iranian journalists.\u00a0Before him, the coach was the Belgian Marc Wilmots, who won only two points, Sko\u010di\u0107 saved them.\u00a0I said that it is a shame that the man who brought them superiorly to the World Cup should be removed in such a way.\u00a0In the end, Taj said that Dragan is a good coach, but they need a man with experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a conflict between the players over\u00a0Sko\u010di\u0107.\u00a0Some were for him, but one group led by Mehdi Taremi from Porto wanted to remove him.\u00a0It started with Sko\u010di\u0107 leaving Taremi out of the team after he publicly opposed him in a post on Twitter.\u00a0Sko\u010di\u0107\u00a0said that the Iranian players are tactically deficient, to which Taremi asserted that they are excellent tactically as well as technically and physically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– The media wrote that the players were divided.\u00a0Sko\u010di\u010d removed Taremi because of an inappropriate statement, but later he brought him back and he played. But maybe that resulted in everything that happened next.\u00a0Several other players followed Taremi and there was indeed a division.\u00a0The coach must not allow anyone to violate his authority, when he loses his grip, he is finished.\u00a0It was an ordinary world for Sko\u010di\u0107 because they see that what they did to him was unfair.\u00a0Part of the media was also against the dismissal, they write that Queiroz received a salary of 50 thousand euros per month, but also that there is no justification for Taj and Queiroz, who with the lack of time must deliver a good preparation for the World Cup.\u00a0It will be interesting, the Americans are much stronger than before, and Iran, although they have good attackers, does not have a great defense.\u00a0That’s why Sko\u010di\u0107 played a 5-4-1 formation.\u00a0But they will “kill themselves” against America,\u00a0then he can finish the World Cup for them – emphasized Vinko Begovi\u0107, whom we caught on the phone on.\u00a0He is retired and not currently involved in football, although he points out that he could still give a lot in the profession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sportske.jutarnji.hr – SPLIT, Portugal’s Carlos Queiroz\u00a0will lead Iran at the World Cup, his assistant will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":46736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,92,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":8416,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46735","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=46735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46737,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46735\/revisions\/46737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}