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 The former Real Madrid and Portugal manager has already resigned
twice in his four years at the helm of the Iran side following rows
with administrators on how to improve the running of the game in
Asia's best nation, according to FIFA rankings.
The former Manchester United assistant boss is desperate for greater
investment to help a side he led to last year's World Cup, but
spending is not easy.
Mansour Ghanbarzadeh, an Iranian Football Federation committee
member, told Reuters last month the IFF were still waiting on $10
million of World Cup prize money, frozen as part of international
sanctions.
But that money, part of more than $100 billion of Iranian assets
frozen abroad, should be unblocked soon after Iran and six major
world powers reached an agreement last month imposing limits on
Tehran's nuclear programme.
"There is a lot of hope now. There is a full field of positivity in
front of us," Queiroz told Reuters in a recent interview of the
deal.
"Between the dream and reality sometimes there is a gap, but no
doubt about it there is a lot of hope and everybody expects things
will come much more easy for the preparation."
Queiroz complained of being in a one-sided marriage upon quitting
the Iran job following the World Cup in Brazil last year, only to
perform a U-turn and stay on.
He refused to name names, but hinted of continued tensions with
members of the IFF or sports ministry who didn't agree where the
money should be spent.
"Iranian football needs better fields, better facilities. We need to
invest in coaching education, youth teams. A lot of areas we must
invest and implement specifics," he said.
"There is no future without investment. The future is all about how
much you work today and prepare to anticipate the problems of the
future. The less you do, the more problems you will face in future.
The key point is not to talk about today.
"But some people they are sure they are not here in 15-20 years so
they don't care about the future. This is not the right way."
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Queiroz's main bug bear in his time in Tehran has been around
preparation for tournaments. The Mozambique-born coach, 62, was
unhappy with the lack of fixtures and cancelled training camps
before the World Cup, where Iran came with a heart-breaking minute
of holding eventual runners-up Argentina to a draw.
They played just two warmup matches, in comparison to six by other
rivals, prior to January's Asian Cup where they were knocked out by
arch adversaries Iraq in the quarter-finals.
Since that tournament, though, Iran have played and beaten Chile,
lost in Sweden and have Japan scheduled to visit in October. "How it
should be," Queiroz said.
A further test of the IFF arrangement for better preparations would
be next week's joint 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers at
home to Guam on Sept. 3 and away to India five days later.
"The plan is already designed. The vision is in place. Now they just
need to execute the plan," he said as Iran look to build on a
disappointing opening 1-1 Group D draw in Turkmenistan.
"Next week we have a couple more games, we are still trying to
implement the plan we designed, we will see next week the conditions
that we have." (Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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