A very insightful talk with Sina, on the state of the Iranian national football team.
Keep up to date with all things associated with Iranian football on Sina’s Twitter account, Iran Football @IranFooty, “following Iranian footballing talents around the world”
We had a good long talk about Iran’s chances in the upcoming FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia. We discussed their footballing style, their manager Carlos Queiroz, the World Cup performances of 2014, the passion of the fans, and some of the key players who might shine at this years tournament, amongst a host of other things.
Don’t forget to check out Sina’s twitter feed to keep abreast of Iran football all day, everyday!
There is a quiet confidence with this England team and the manager has also done very well to blood the team with a lot of new young players and letting some big names retire early. This is an England team without the big stars and big egos of English teams past. Wayne Rooney is finally gone, thank Christ, and there are no Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Owens type players to raise expectations. Ok Harry Kane could arguably fill that bracket, but he is still relatively unproven at international level, and with him we have Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Danny Rose and Dele Alli, a bunch of players who have had good seasons with their clubs the last few years, and who if they gel together can propel England far in this World Cup. 
They are in a relatively easy group. Ok Belgium are tough, but England should have too much for Tunisia and Panama, and I’d fully expect them to come out of the group without too much bother. Their last game against Belgium should be a great head to head to see who gets to play either Colombia, Senegal or Poland in round two, all beatable teams for England either way. But after that it is either Brazil or Germany in the last eight awaiting, and both teams are tough to break down. But the good thing for England is that Southgate has the team well drilled on penalties, a nice change from previous managers who didn’t think it necessary! England should get to the last eight, but after that they might need Kane to hit the form of his life to go beyond that. 
Called “Kabinet”, to reflect a cabinet of curiosities or wonders of life, “a collection of distinctive, unique items, all that is rare, strange and precious, finest handicrafts, natural wonders, usually received and gathered from the exotic travel as an examples of the natural, geological, religious, ethnological and artistic value”. Founded by a Serbia couple, whose “wish is that the Kabinet Brewery, as a cabinet of curiosities, gathers in one place all the amazing tastes and smells of the beer world that has long inspired us”. It certainly sounds all great. 
The smell is very nice, a typical IPA style smell, very fruity, very hoppy and very strong on the nose.
Again a strange looking logo, a modern art kind of thing, is interesting enough but I am not sure its the best looking logo for a simple beer. Apparently, according to the artist who designed it, it is meant to represent the evoking of our sensations after drinking a Mozaik.
Typical IPA taste, hoppy and bitter, fruity, citrusy, get it all at the start, lingers too especially the caramel on the tongue. 
All this nonsense takes away from the fact that Uruguay have a pretty good footballing team. José María Giménez and Diego Godín have worked well together for Atlético Madrid this season and are a rock in the centre of defense. Up front the pairing of Suarez and Edinson Cavani will be a major headache for a lot of teams. They are physical (perhaps too much), feed off each other perfectly, and can score from all angles. They are a dangerous partnership that deserves respect. 
Oscar Tabarez is back for his 4th World Cup, but I thought they should have ditched him after the last fiasco, as he lost control of his own team and appeared to be a bit of a jabbering idiot at times. In times of panic and mayhem you need strong leadership and he was found badly wanting. 
Coming in some very eye catching logos, Zombräu, definitely have an interesting concept and story behind them. The names of the beers stand out too, with titles such as “MotorOil”, “Voodoo”, “Macumba” and “Insbierator”, all with themes related to the spiritual underworld.
I can certainly can see the attraction in these beers. Experimenting with exciting new styles, they are very unconventional in their style and approach, so much so that they consciously violate the purity law that German beers hold so dear. Breaking rules and doing something new, I love it! The traditional Bavarian wheat beers and lagers were a thing of the past, here they tried to do it differently. No beer styles are off limits. they brew IPA’s, Stout, Porter, Red Ale, Belgian beers and some specialty wheat beers, and more. Easy to see how spending time with Brewdog, one of the brothers (Tobi) came back a changed soul full of creative ideas and an action plan. In the beginning of 2013, Giesinger Bräu in Munich gave them an opportunity to brew a 5 hl brew of their finest IPA in their brewery, and the rest the say is history. Now the boys have a collection of beers, bottled and on sale ready to dominate the World, one town at a time.
On pour get a nice frothy head, with a very cloudy golden orange coloured beer. A good bit of carbonation resulting in quite a big white head. 
The logo for this one has a sleepy village and a church, with a nuclear power station in the background. Impending doom perhaps? The calm before the storm?
Aroma was strong, definitely could smell the bourbon aroma. I found it quite strong on the nose, also got some smokiness and an earthly feel from the beer. 
Motor Oil, what a great name for a beer, and especially for a stout, very good. “200% Stout, Guaranteed satisfaction” written on the bottle, ok I guess but a 100% would be good enough for me!
On the taste, I get the chocolate, the dark malts and the caramel, some licorice 
On pour get a nice frothy white head with a beer that has a lovely hazy amber-ruby colour. It really is a lovely looking beer, very nice.
From the Brauer and Co in Leipzig, in the eastern German state of Saxony, in what was part of eastern Germany, I got two unique looking beers. One a pilsner called Funky Forelle (Funky trout!), a Pils coming in an equally funky bottle with a rather pop art design of a fish on the long necked brown bottle, looks great. The other beer was a radler called Pretty Potwall (Pretty sperm whale!), also coming in a rather trendy looking design. We get the sperm whale enjoying himself with a nice big yellow lemon! Other than that I dont know a whole lot about the beers or the brewery but then I would guess that is part of the attraction of the beers! Mysterious! 
On pour I got a decent sized white headed beer, with a very clear, golden yellowish colour.
Coming in a nice long 5,l brown bottle with a rather cool looking logo of a Sperm Whale in the shape of a glass, eye catching.
Get a hazy looking light golden coloured radler. 
So for this World Cup can we expect more of the same? They might, but probably not. They got Spain and, European Champions, Portugal, with Morocco propping up the group. The only silver lining is that they get to play Morocco first, knowing a win is vital if they have any chance of making the second round. Playing Spain in the second game will be simply all about damage limitation, but if they get the result in the first game then they could try for a point that might be good enough for them in the last game against Portugal, provided they do some sort of defensive number on Ronnie. Perhaps Carlos Queiroz might have some useful tips for this game to pass onto his players? He certainly did a great job in the last world cup, assembling a very well drilled team. I would like them to do well, but I cant see it unfortunately. 
They have got a new coach Mladen Krstajić, after dispensing with Slavoljub Muslin who got them into the damn thing. So sure enough it takes time for the new coach to get his ideas across as that can be seen with their intermittent form in the friendlies. I dont know what the Serbian FA want, the manager did very well to get such a rubbish team into the World Cup, and if they are playing so poorly then surely the senior players should get a kick up the backside rather than sack the coach? 
In a group with Brazil, they wont win it. but they have a chance against Switzerland and Costa Rica for sure and could sneak into the second round without too much hassle. If so then its Germany up next, but remember they did beat them the last time they were in the World Cup, 1-0 in 2012, a result that at the time few expected, so maybe perhaps lightning could strike again? I doubt it though! 
