According to Mehr’s reporter, the Asian Champions League competitions will be held in different groups from next week, and important games are waiting for three Iranian football representatives. Persepolis, Sepahan and Nasaji will try their best to have a strong presence in these games in a season when Saudi clubs have tried to attract world football stars such as Ronaldo, Benzema, Kante, Brozovic, Mane, Laporte, etc.
Persepolis is the first representative of Iranian football in ACL2023, which must be hosted in the country. After the draw of this competition, this team was grouped with Al Nasr of Saudi Arabia, Esteghlal of Tajikistan and Al Duhail of Qatar, so that the chance of confrontation with Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Brozovic, Laporte and Talisco would be created for Yahya Gol Mohammadi’s students in the meeting with Al Nasr. Of course, Qatar’s Al Duhail also showed that it is no less than the Saudi rival by recruiting Coutinho, the former star of Liverpool and Barcelona, so it will be difficult for Persepolis in the group stage.
Yahya Golmohammadi had no choice but to rely on the strength of his current players despite the arrival of world football stars to the Asian continent. Persepolis, which is still struggling with financial problems, closed its list for the current season for the Premier League with the least input but more output to find a complicated situation.
Crisis “Number One”
Yahya Golmohammadi faced Ahmed Gohari’s insistence on leaving during the summer transfers, so that Alireza Biranvand, the number one goalkeeper of the Iranian national team, would lose his replacement in Persepolis. Amir Reza Rafiei, the goalkeeper of Omidha, will become the second goalkeeper of the team. Biranvand also opposed the recruitment of an inexperienced foreign goalkeeper because he believed that he would not be able to play much and that Persepolis would lose its foreign quota next season due to the transfer rules that require foreigners to play at least 60%.
This made Biranund become the team’s first and only reliable defender in the list without having a reliable reserve. It didn’t take long for Biranvand to face a serious injury in the recent camp of the Iranian national team during a friendly match against Bulgaria, and now his presence in the match against Saudi Arabia’s Nasr has become a serious crisis.
First class defenders
Despite the ideal performance of Morteza Pouraliganji and Giorgi Golsiani in the heart of this team’s defense in the last season, Golmohamadi decided to attract Mohammad Hossein Kananizadegan to wear the shirt of Persepolis once again. The presence of Canaanites in the first four weeks faced Golsiani’s sitting on the bench, but Persepolis’ defense line definitely has one of the best defense lines in these early weeks, so that it might reduce some of Yahya’s worries about stopping Ronaldo and Mane in the game with Al-Nasr.
This team has Daniyal Esmaili Far and Ali Nemati so that the Reds have acceptable strength in defense.
Creative and playmaking midfielders
Gol Mohammadi’s other strategic decision in the summer was to recruit Masoud Rigi. He preferred to take the Sepahan midfielder in order to control the middle of the field more for himself along with creative midfielders such as Milad Sarlak, Soroush Rafiei and Sina Asadbeighi. The belt of the Reds in the midfield with the presence of players such as Mehdi Torabi, Saeed Sadeghi and Vahid Amiri is as strong as before, so that the least fear will come to the technical staff of the Reds.
A one-man offensive line army with a strange purchase
Issa Al Kathir, Sheikh Diabate, Leandro Pereira and Mehdi Abdi were the attackers who left Persepolis at the beginning of the season so that Shahab Zahedi was the only specialist player in the attack line of this team. Yahya Golmohammadi and his analysts monitored more than 56 players for recruiting, but the sensitivity about their quality caused only a few players to be introduced to the club for negotiation, whose contract amount or personal problems prevented them from signing the final contract with the likes of Flip Kaisedo. Finally, in a strange and unbelievable move, Reza Darvish decided to recruit “Nabil Bahavi” without coordination with the technical staff, so that this Swedish striker will be on the final list of Persepolis for ACL. A player that Yahya didn’t want at all, but he is going to play in the Asian Champions League and the Premier League with the Persepolis shirt.
The 26-man list of Persepolis for the Asian Champions League is as follows:
Omid Alishah (captain), Amirreza Rafiei, Alireza Biranvand, Morteza Pouraliganji, Daniyal Esmailifar, Masoud Rigi, Shahab Zahedi, Soroush Rafiei, Saeed Sadeghi, Mohammad Milad Sorgi, Ali Nemati, Alireza Babaei, Mohammad Omri, Farshad Faraji, Georgi Golsiani. Mohammad Hossein Kanaanizadegan, Mohammad Mehdi Ahmadi, Mehdi Torabi, Sina Asadbeigi, Mehrshad Asadi, Milad Sarlak, Vahdat Hananov, Vahid Amiri, Omid Fahmi, Yasin Salmani and Nabil Bahoui.