Official: De Sa Joins Queiroz At Iran

Roger De Sa will be flying out today to join Carlos Queiroz as they begin their preparations with the Iranian national team for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Finals.

As reported by iDiski Times last week, the pair who recently worked together with the Egyptian national team, have re-united to lead Iran, who Queiroz previously coached between 2011 and 2019.

While born in Maputo, De Sa moved to South Africa and would go on to represent the country in three sports.

This will be De Sa’s fourth role coaching a national team, and his second working with a national squad through a World Cup campaign.

They will begin preparations on Tuesday before heading to Austria where they will play friendlies against Uruguay and Senegal.

“Wednesday and Thursday we start training with the team,” De Sa said in a statement.

“Saturday we train again, and then we fly to Austria where we play Uruguay and Senegal. We return to Iran where we continue the scouting process with the team.

“These two games will give us a good idea. I may fly to Europe to watch some of the players with their clubs, and we we will probably train in Dubai for a week before we go to Qatar.”  

“Once you qualify for the World Cup you give yourself a realistic chance, and with the tournament being held in Qatar, it evens it out a bit more because you are not playing in Europe, you are not playing in South America, so it’s almost a neutral venue,” De Sa continued.

“The heat and humidity will be a challenge for many of the players in the tournament. We have a short time to prepare, not ideal, ideally we would have been there for a year but Carlos knows the team and the players know him, as he coached them in the last two World Cups.” 

De Sa is pleased to be working with Queiroz again.

“We had a nine-month gig there,” he added.

“When we were called in to work with Egypt they were out of the top twenty in Africa, which is unusual for a country like Egypt, so they were struggling and we managed to get some good results early on.

“We made it to the final of the AFCON, beating a lot of top teams to reach the final, which we lost to Senegal on a penalty shootout. We over-achieved in the Cup of Nations; by the time we finished we were fourth or fifth in Africa. We beat Morocco, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, the host team.”

The World Cup qualifier we unfortunately lost again to Senegal in a penalty shootout. Our goal was to qualify for the World Cup, which we did not achieve. We have left a good vibe in Egypt but I could not commit long-term to staying there.”

De Sa is looking forward to work with the Iranian players, and get to know them in the coming weeks.

“When I become a coach, priority number one is that I am a human being and so is the player – that is number one,” he concluded.

“I think Carlos is the same. Many coaches forget that, I think. I will be their coach for a year or two maybe, but we can be friends until we die.” 

In this edition of iDiski Times Grant Margeman talks about his desire to show his worth at SuperSport United and eventually return to claim a spot at Mamelodi Sundowns. Banyana coach Desiree Ellis talks about their preperation for the World Cup and how the WAFCON gold medal has changed everything. There is also a feature putting focus on the Bafana Bafana goalkeeping conundrum. Read this and a whole lot more in the full edition below: