TEHRAN The manager of Iran's national soccer teams said that off-the-pitch problems had endangered football and the officials should prefer the main issues to trivial and petty cases.

The manager and the fast-paced international Khodadad Azizi, famous worldwide for scoring the winner in World Cup playoff of Iran-Australia in Melbourne in 1997, had a verbal quarrel in the locker-room before the Iran-Industry friendly on Friday, IRNA reported.

Taking part in a conference attended by journalists, the Manager of National Soccer Teams Mohammad Ranjbar added, "Before the Iran-Industry friendly, the Croat Head Coach of Iran, Miroslav Blazevic arranged a session in which he described the technical and tactical points to the players and nothing special occurred during the meeting."

After the lineup was announced, explained Ranjbar adding that the footballers took their shirts but Khodadad Azizi, who was seeking for his shirt asked me if he was a foreign national, and continued, "Shirt No. 11 belongs to Khodadad, doesn't it?"

Not certainly yet, I replied and told him, "You have to win it by your effort," added the manager.

Khodadad has a good spirit and is regarded as a hardworking player and during the warm-up sessions of national side he all the time lifted the spirit of the team, said Ranjbar adding that there was no trace of the problems facing the national players in the past since Blazevic is doing his coaching job very well and distances himself from side problems. He has the final say in all fields and nobody imposes on and even proposes an idea to him.

During the training sessions, Khodadad was very active and proved his ability, making me very happy, regretted Ranjbar.

In the Friday friendly against Industry and Mine, Khodadad could not play well, said the manager of Iranian national soccer teams and then continued, "Blazevic had earlier warned that those players who cannot tolerate the pressure of exercises, are better to give up and Khodadad said that he was not ready for the Europe-based sessions."

We should not pay attention to the "big names" and the most qualified footballers should play in the national side, Ranjbar added.

I wish Khodadad would not get so much involved in the off-the-pitch problems and serve the football community of Iran in the future, concluded the manager.