TEHRANTIMES - NEC Iranian star Alireza Jahanbakhsh who has played in all of Iran youth teams believes having no plan for the youth ranks is the main reason for disappointing results of Iran Olympic team in the 2014 Asian Games.

The 21-year old who was part of the Iranian national football team in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil discussed the  Olympic team and also his latest situation at NEC in an interview with ISNA.

Following are excerpts of the interview:

* You had some offers from Eredivisie teams. Why did you stay at NEC?

Yes I had good offers from top Dutch teams but its two years left on my contract with NEC and the club officials didn’t want me to leave . However I’m happy at NEC and I hope to continue my good run.

* Are you happy with Carlos Queiroz contract extension?

Queiroz was the best choice and I think everyone is happy that he remained in charge. The decision should have been made sooner , we’ve lost a lot of time but we have to prepare quickly for the AFC Asian Cup.

* Do you think we can overcome Asia’s big teams like Japan and Australia at the AFC Asian Cup?

It’s really tough and I’m not going to predict anything but I hope we  have a good team with quality players at the tournament.

* You did not feature for Olympic team at the Asian Games. What was wrong with that team?

I saw Iran’s both matches at the Asian Games there were and there was no organization in the team with each player  playing on his own. We had a great team at the 2012 AFC U-19 Championship which was held in UAE but after that there was no plan to improve that team and that seems to be the reason why we got poor results in the Asian Games. We have to stop putting the pressure on players and the coach, it’s better to hold several training camps in order to improve this team for the 2016 Olympic Games qualifying games.

Iran has little hopes of qualifying after a 4-1 defeat against Vietnam and a 1-1 draw versus Kyrgyzstan. Iran will only qualify for the next round if Vietnam defeat Kyrgystan by 3 goal margin.