Ghotbi officially a lame duck

IranSportsPress.com - If Afshin Ghotbi has been wondering in the past if he is running on borrowed time, at least he has a confirmation now.

The simple fact that a federation has negotiations and talks with another manager on the coaching position, given that the current coach is still in charge, and even admits it, is ridiculous itself. However, at least now Afshin Ghotbi can be assured, that while his career as national team coach might not be as short as Leprechaun, it is pretty unlikely that he will coach Iran at the Asian Cup 2011. 
He might have qualified for the Asian Cup, it might be unfair to fire him, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to him. Fact is that at a time when the national team was very unpopular under Daei, for the right or wrong reasons, Ghotbi was made coach rather on his popularity than his qualifications, although his Perspolis team winning the league was still one of the better Iranian teams of the past seasons and despite the last minute winner against Sepahan, had a rather impressive league season beating all point and goal records. Now that his popularity is fading and in fact the public view of him is rather negative than positive and his results were not overly impressive, there are few reasons left for IFF to keep him.
Ghotbi was always one defeat or bad result away from getting replaced by another coach and with a couple of high profile managers like Terim, Troussier, Hallihodzic and soon probably Denizli unemployed, Ghalenoei winning the league even more in style and IFF looking to improve their reputation, his time might just be up again pretty soon too.