Ghalenoei's Double Standard on Ghaedi: When Jahanbakhsh and Mahmoudi's Minutes Didn't Matter!

Amir Ghalenoei also addressed Mehdi Ghaedi's omission in his recent interview.

According to ambassador Arjan; The absence of Mehdi Qaidi in the recent list of the national team caused a lot of controversy and many people related it to the interview of this player after the World Cup. In his interview, Qaidi mentioned Farhad Majidi and Andrea Stramachoni as the best coaches during his playing days and did not mention Qalanoui. After this interview and Qaidi's withdrawal from the national team, critics believed that the reason for this player's absence was not technical. An issue that Qalanewi rejected. Qalanoui announced the reason for Qaidi's absence from the national team list is the unpreparedness of this player, but he made a strange mistake in part of his talk about this player.

Ghalenoui said that when Qaidi won the championship with Esteghlal, he was not in the national team list, which is a wrong fact. Qaidi was not a member of this team at the time of the last championship of Esteghlal and played for Shabab Al-Ahli of the Emirates, which did not perform well that season.

However, in the Asian Nations Cup, despite his high preparation and scoring in the first 2 games, Qaidi did not get much chance to play in the elimination stage, and even against Qatar in the semi-finals, when the national team needed a goal, he was on the bench for 90 minutes. Of course, despite his absence in the important matches of the national team, Qaidi was also included in the selected team of the Asian Nations Cup due to his brilliance in the group stage! Qaidi played only 45 minutes in the 2026 World Cup, and Ghalenoui preferred other players to him against Belgium and Egypt, and it seems that, contrary to these words, he does not have much faith in this player.

On the other hand, if Qaidi was not invited due to sitting on the bench in Nasr, then how come Amirhossein Mahmoudi, who played only 26 minutes for Persepolis this season, is still on Qalanewi's list and Alireza Jahanbakhsh is going to the World Cup after sitting on the bench in the last team of Belgium? Does the technical criteria of the head coach of the national team change depending on each player, or did he not tell the whole story about not inviting Qaidi?

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