Here come the friendlies!

Yesterday Team Melli coach Ali Daei told reporters about the upcoming schedule of the team.

According to Daei in January the team will travel to Spain and reside in the Basque country for a short training camp and along the way will have two practice matches. He also talked about home and away friendly matches with China, and a four team tournament in Oman. Oh, and there was also a reference to an unnamed, but promised to be high profile, European team. Supposedly the match will take place in Dubai. All of this suppose to happen between now to February of 2009.

This all sounds great, but if you know anything about our national team’s long history of failing to secure friendlies, you will not hold your breath waiting for that unnamed European team encounter, or the four way tournament in Oman. The China match is the most likely to happen, but the chances are not home and away, but just home.

I hope I am wrong, but I would not suggest you bet on it!