- Title: IRAN: GERMAN FOOTBALL SQUAD ARRIVE FOR FRIENDLY SOCCER MATCGH
- Date: 7th October 2004
- Summary: TEHRAN, IRAN (OCTOBER 7, 2004)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. IRANIAN FANS, INCLUDING WOMEN, WAITING AT AIRPORT TO SEE GERMAN PLAYERS ARRIVE 2. IRANIAN FANS WAVING PICTURES OF GERMAN PLAYERS 3. GERMAN PLAYERS, INCLUDING COACH JUERGEN KLINSMANN, AT ARRIVALS LOUNGE OF AIRPORT 4. (SOUNDBITE)(ENGLISH) UNIDENTIFIED MAN SAYS : Germany is the
- Embargoed: 22nd October 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TEHRAN, IRAN
- Country: Iran
- Reuters ID: LVA5YS3EWCFF6VOJT9CCPDZL91N3
- Story Text: German squad arrive in Tehran for friendly soccer
match against Iran.
Germany's squad arrived at Tehran on Thursday (October 7)
for Saturday's (October 9) friendly match against Iran's
national team.
The match was arranged at the beginning of the year
when a delegation from Germany's Football Federation
visited Iran and learned of the devastation caused by the
earthquake that destroyed the area around Bam in December
2003.
The game has been eagerly anticipated in Iran.
Hundreds of soccer fans were at the airport to see the
German players arrive. Among them were many women fans but
they will be prevented from watching the match in the Azadi
stadium.
Iran's Football Federation has said that German women
can attend the match but barred Iranian women, many of whom
are the Islamic country's most passionate fans, often
flooding streets after victories to blow whistles and
brandish flags.
The young squad of 19 players is without Bayern Munich
midfielder Torsten Frings who pulled out with a thigh
injury. Coach Juergen Klinsmann decided not to replace him
in the squad. Frings has failed to recover from the muscle
injury sustained in Bayern's 2-1 win over Bundesliga champions Werder
Bremen on Saturday. The match proved
costly for Klinsmann, depriving him of Werder defender
Frank Fahrenhorst with a broken nose. Borussia Dortmund's
Christian Woerns was called up on Sunday as his
replacement.
Two others are missing. Goalkeeper Oliver Kahn is
being rested and striker Kevin Kuranyi, who has scored four
goals in his last two internationals, is injured.
Last time Germany played Iran was in the 1990 World
Cup with a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Klinsmann and
Oliver Bierhoff. Both are back in Tehran - Klinsmann as
national coach and Bierhoff as an ambassador for the 2006
World Cup finals to be held in Germany.
Klinsmann has had two matches in charge of the German
team. Germany beat Austria 3-1 in August and played well in
a 1-1 draw with Brazil in Berlin a month ago.
In Tehran was the president of the German Football
Federation (DFB) Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder who arranged the
match at the beginning of the year. He pointed out how much
the Iran squad had improved since the last match between
the two sides in 1998. He particularly admired two players,
Mahdi Mahdavikia and Vahid Hashemian, who have been playing
in the Bundesliga this year and so are familiar to German
fans.
Mayer-Vorfelder also explained how the invitation to
arrange a match came after he had toured Iran early in 2004
and was told about the devastation caused by the 2003
earthquake.
TEHRAN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Iran's female soccer fans will be
forced to watch a Saturday night friendly against Germany
on television after authorities upheld a ban on Iranian
women attending stadiums.
Iran's Football Federation said German women could attend
the match but barred Iranian women, many of whom are the
Islamic country's most passionate fans, often flooding
streets after victories to blow whistles and brandish
flags.
"Women are not allowed to be present at the stadium for
Saturday's match, with an exception for family members from
the German embassy," federation spokesman Shahram Vaziri
said.
The authorities say they bar women from stadiums to protect
them against harrassment from raucous fans, but concessions
are often made for foreigners wanting to cheer their team.
But some in the hardline press criticised the decision to
allow foreign women in the national stadium.
"This is a pretext to drag women and girls into stadiums,"
hardline Jomhuri-ye Eslami daily, wrote last week.
Football, Iran's top spectator sport, attracts tens of
thousands of fans to stadiums.
"The excitement of being in the stadium is way different
from watching the game by television," Athena, a 19-year
old Iranian handball player, said. "I have been to
basketball and volleyball matches where men play, why not
football?"
Several public sports have been out of bounds to women
since the 1979 Islamic revolution and female Iranians can
only play sports such as football in indoor, women-only
sports halls.
German squad:
Goalkeepers: Timo Hildebrand (VfB Stuttgart), Jens
Lehmann (Arsenal, England)
Defenders: Andreas Goerlitz (Bayern Munich), Andreas
Hinkel (VfB Stuttgart), Robert Huth (Chelsea, England),
Philipp Lahm (VfB Stuttgart), Per Mertesacker (Hannover
96), Christian Woerns (Borussia Dortmund)
Midfielders: Michael Ballack (Bayern Munich), Tim
Borowski (Werder Bremen), Sebastian Deisler (Bayern
Munich), Fabian Ernst (Werder Bremen), Torsten Frings
(Bayern Munich), Thomas Hitzlsperger (Aston Villa,
England), Bernd Schneider (Bayer Leverkusen), Bastian
Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich)
Forwards: Gerald Asamoah (Schalke 04), Thomas Brdaric
(VfL Wolfsburg), Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen), Lukas
Podolski (Cologne)
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