Omid Team begins its Olympic qualifying campaign

The roster for the upcoming Olympics qualifier against Iraq has been announced by the Omid team coaches and it looks quite a comprehensive list with perhaps one or two worthy players missing. But nonetheless, this is a very capable team that with enough support from the Iranian authorities, especially the interior ministry and military in allowing the exit and travel of the under 23 years players (God only knows how many times our Olympic teams have suffered from players not given permission to leave the country due to military service rules), they stand a decent chance of advancing to the next stage of the Asian region qualifiers.

The list is;
Hamed Lak, Mohamad Mazaheri, Mohamad KhalilAzad
Milad Fakhredini, Reza Talabeh, Shoja Khalilzadeh, Rasoul Kor, Abolhassan Jafari, Mehrdad Jamaati, Ehsan Hajsafi, Siamak Korushi, Ali Zeinali, Saman Aghazamani, Ali Marzban, Kamal Kamyabinia, Yaqoub Karimi, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Mohamadreza ZeinalKheiri, Hamid AliAsgar, Mohsen Mosalman, Karim Ansarifad, Iman Musavi, Arash Afshin, Mehdi Daghaghele, and Masoud Ebrahimzadeh.

The only name I find missing in the team is Bakhtiar Rahmani, Foolad’s creative playmaker who had a very good season in the league. However, I see enough talent in the team to manage the two leg tie and come out on top.

They come off a 2-1 friendly win against the Syrian Olympics team which should muster up enough confidence to meet the Iraqi side which by all accounts should be very similar to the Syrians; a tough, physical team with enough skills to push any team. The away game is scheduled on Sunday 19th of June in Iraq with the home game in Tehran on Thursday 23rd.