Editorial: Iran's chance to bring the Cup back home

There are not too many reasons to believe that Iran will bring the Asian Cup back to Tehran, and eventually, a first round exit seems just as possible as winning the cup.
However, the closer the tournament come, the more you look at other teams, and the more you see the team at training, the more reasons for reasonable optimism come up.
We might say a lot about Mr.Ghalenoie, that tactically he is inferior to his Asian counterparts, he is a one-trick pony, he doesn't make the right subs, is inexperienced etc. but for what it's worth, looking from the outside and at the pictures we got the spirit of the team seems really good, something we didn't have at the World Cup as an example. He has built together a group of players that apparently get along well, where the team leaders like Mahdavikia, Nekounam and Karimi are accepted and the team is willing to fight like musketeers, all for one, one for all. That may come down as our biggest asset. Furthermore, unlike 4 years ago, we have much more depth and quality in the team and whatever we want to say about Mr.Ghalenoie, it's not that Mr.Ivankovic was a much better coach tactically than his counterparts Zico, Macala and Arie Haan.
More reasons for optimism are the preparation and mood inside of our contenders.
Take Japan as an example. Japan has probably the best coach in Asia in Ivica Osim, a legendary coach who built the great Yugoslavian team of the early 90ies, who guided a small team like Sturm Graz to the 2nd group stage of the Champions League with breathtaking offensive football, who in his home country is treated as a divine football artist and is one of the most respected coaches in football. They also have the most outstanding Asian player right now in Shunsuke Nakamura. However, Osim has been very critical over the preparation for the Asian Cup, because the Japanese FA doesn't take it for granted. Japan didn't have a single training camp yet, because the J-League will end this weekend and at the latest training camp, only 10 out of 30 players turned out. Further, Nakamura at least comes from a very long season and it will be seen how fresh he is for the Asian Cup. Japan are probably still the favourites to win it, but the preparation so far has been unexpectedly bad of them, something we would only imagine from Iran.
Saudi Arabia would be another example. On paper, the team is very strong, one of the strongest in recent time. However, they sacked their coach Paqueta 3 months ago, since then had no friendly, will play over the week 4 friendly games and their coach Dos Anjos is a big unknown. Internal rivalries between Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal players are also bound to happen. So Saudi Arabia isn't really in the best position either.
South Korea would maybe therefore be a favourite to win, but somehow South Korea doesn't seem to care for the Asian Cup really, although maybe this time with the Confederations Cup ahead, it would give them extra motivation. But somehow, South Korea and Asian Cup don't mix. For them, the World Cup qualification seems to be the real Asian Cup.
China, despite all the progress they have supposedly made, are probably still behind us and not really there to win the Asian Cup. We will know more about China when we face them, but overall, and with the sense of revenge in mind from 4 years ago, we should be capable of beating China, specially as we also have an excellent record against them. Australia has no experience at the Asian Cup and most of their players come back from a long season in England and will probably have their minds rather set on the start of the Premier League than winning the Asian Cup. Still, Australia has prepared pretty well for the Asian Cup and they are probably there to win it. On paper their team also looks best, but given the circumstances, they are not in the best position either.
All in all, the team might not be at its best and the best in Asia, but it has the right mentality and the right players to win the Asian Cup and bring it back to Tehran for after more than 30 years. Something we should also consider is that for a generation of players, like Mahdavikia, Rezaei, Hashemian and Karimi this will be the last chance to win something important and even more, for Iran this will be the last generation probably in a long time, at least if we look at our youth teams compared to other Asian players at their age, to win a trophy.
The bigger question though is whether a win would be in the best interest for us at all. As the great Johan Cruyff wrote in an article last week, sometimes it is easier to change and make corrections in a squad after a defeat than after a triumph, so most probably a win at the Asian Cup would make us forget about all the structural problems we have in our football and we would even lose more on our competitors in Asia.

However, I personally stopped believing some time ago, that we will ever learn from past mistakes in football, so we might as well live for today and forget about tomorrow.