Esteghlal vs. Saipa: a great IPL game

[News-Breaker]

Let's talk about the game: I thought it was a great performance by both teams especially Saipa with its young players. Very nice game by Saipa's goalkeeper today who saved some great goal scoring chances. Darius Yazdani also played a great game and he was in full control. I think Marfavi made a mistake by taking Kuike out and bringing in Alizadeh. On the other hand, I was worried that why Daei took Sadeghi out but it worked for him.
Mohsen Khalili was also impressive and I think he has a great future. Marfavi should have played Mansourian. This season IPL has been very exciting and unpredictable. I personally hope that Saipa wins it all because they have a young and talented team. Fatolahzadeh needs to bring Hejazi in and restructure the entire team. He is a good manager and he knows how to handle the team. Hejazi was in the crowd among the fans and they cheered him a lot.

I just noticed that F+ forum is back on and I wanted to post my 2 cents.

[Khodayar]

It was a great game, would have been better if it was a bit faster (although it might be asking too much). I also think that Alizadeh-Kuike sub was a mistake, probably done to take advantage of throw ins.

Sadeghi was not himself after missing the penalty. It was good for his self esteem that Daei kept him till 70th minute. It was a wise move on Daei's part, not accepting the arm band.

All in all, a good game and a well deserved win for Saipa. Let's see if they can keep the momentum in their last 2 games against Pas and Mes.

[yashar_fasihnia]

i dont know wat to say

[Mansoor]

I already talked about coaching when I posted the other thread(sorry NB jaan, I typed at the same time you did and posted). But I also wanna add the players performance here.

I think Memarzadeh showed lot of promises. Obviously one match does not prove anything, and greatness comes out of consistency. But this match sure belonged to him as he saved Saipa's victory with good reflections and saves.

Also, I like how Ashtiani played in left wing, and of course, I see a lot of spirit in Khalili's eyes. I don't know if Khalili is an international player or not, but sure shines in IPL level. He has scored a lot of important goals for Saipa, and has been part of the reason for Saipa's championship drive. Interesting to note that Saipa's sudden go down in second half of season coincided with Khalili's injury. I don't have a good stat sheet, but I am guessing Saipa's success rate with him is much higher than w/o him.

In Esteghlal side, Baoo and Yousefi played way above everyone else. Talebloo was solid but couldn't do much with that shaky defense ahead of him. Yousefi is improving rather quickly and we should see more of him soon.

As for Akbarpour, he has the same virus as Oladi. They both are super talent, gradually being wasted due to lack of discipline, and "wanna be Karimi" attitute. The term "pass" is a contradicatory term to their name. They see it as harmful to their health and being! too bad, hate to see them disappear ....

Momenzadeh and Alizadeh were great in runs but terrible in playing football! I think their feet is crooked!

[BehzadB]

It was more of poor defense than a great offense. the two shouldn't be mixed.

Neither Saipa nor SS showed any defensive capability. almost every attempt by the opposing team was a dangerous one. Today, we had two defensive lines performing very poorly. And come to think of it, if these teams had better finishers, the score line would have been 6-5 or 7-6!

Saipa is the same team that couldn't beat anyone for like 9 weeks. Some of those teams were not even half as good as SS. But today, Saipa made SS defense look like a ' Mahalee' team.

SS on the other hand was the same team that it's only offensive tactic had been long throw ins by Alizadeh. Today they produced a lot of 100% chances some through short passing and some created by accurate long balls, most of which was the result of poor defense by Saipa.

In all 4 corners of the field, the offensive players were beating the defensive ones and creating chances for their team. all and all it made one of the most entertaining games I have seen this year.

[yashar_fasihnia]

I already talked about coaching when I posted the other thread(sorry NB jaan, I typed at the same time you did and posted). But I also wanna add the players performance here.
I think Memarzadeh showed lot of promises. Obviously one match does not prove anything, and greatness comes out of consistency. But this match sure belonged to him as he saved Saipa's victory with good reflections and saves.
Also, I like how Ashtiani played in left wing, and of course, I see a lot of spirit in Khalili's eyes. I don't know if Khalili is an international player or not, but sure shines in IPL level. He has scored a lot of important goals for Saipa, and has been part of the reason for Saipa's championship drive. Interesting to note that Saipa's sudden go down in second half of season coincided with Khalili's injury. I don't have a good stat sheet, but I am guessing Saipa's success rate with him is much higher than w/o him.
In Esteghlal side, Baoo and Yousefi played way above everyone else. Talebloo was solid but couldn't do much with that shaky defense ahead of him. Yousefi is improving rather quickly and we should see more of him soon.
As for Akbarpour, he has the same virus as Oladi. They both are super talent, gradually being wasted due to lack of discipline, and "wanna be Karimi" attitute. The term "pass" is a contradicatory term to their name. They see it as harmful to their health and being! too bad, hate to see them disappear ....
Momenzadeh and Alizadeh were great in runs but terrible in playing football! I think their feet is crooked!

i think ghalenoi also mentioned he has plans for yousefi and inviting him to TM..

[mkbf2]

One of the best IPL games I've seen in a while. Amazing goalkeeping by Saipa's goalie.

But you can still see the problems with Iranian football. At times in the first half, it looked like both teams were playing without any tactics at all.

[KasraKhan]

I agree with most points made. It was really one of the best IPL matches I have ever seen. Very exciting goal to goal action.

Marfavi made a HUGE mistake taking out Kwike, I thought he was on of SS's best players. Always dangerous, both in the air and on the ground, and he had a few good 1-2 combinations with other SS players. Kwike's replacement, Alizadeh, missed 2 sitters, at least one of them I'm sure Kwike would have found the net.

I was also impresed by Yazdani. The veteran was as cool as ever with a cool head the whole game, beautiful passes into space for Saipa strikers, and creating all sort of havoc in the midfield. Ashtiani was also good

And I dont know why Talebnasab plays every match. Everytime I see SS play, he is one of the worst on the pitch. He is so weak and fraile and he loses the ball everytime he touches it

[yashar_fasihnia]

kasra khan, we have no choice but to use talebnasab, who can we use to replace him?

our best alternative is to to play both alizadeh and kwike upfront and move akbarpour one line back and replace talebnasab

[Ali Chicago]

I am a blue fan, so I admit I am biased. Congrats to Saipa and Dai for victory. Having said that, I think there is a bit of over reaction to Dai's role in this. Time will show of course. Saipa won because Khalili which was a no factor until then converted (on the other end, Alizadeh didnt' convert twice at least). It would have been interesting to see, there would have been the same canival environment and adoration for Dai had Alizadeh scored at least once.

Esteghlal lost this game in part to some of the coaching staff mistakes.

1. Playing Fekri as a center defender in a 3-5-2. Fekri is a good defensive midfielder not a last defender (he simply lacks speed and has no game in the air for the last defender (traditional sweeper). Fekri kept the team back and plays close to the 18 yard box, probably to cover for his lack of speed (the same problem Sayed Jalal Hosseini has in my opinion).
In order to prevent a big hole in front of the defense (due to space between defense and mids) EsEs midfield can't move up and support the forwards. There the EsEs Second wave of attack is non-existant. (more on below)

2. Playing Talebnasab (for the most part of the game he was just lost and one couldnt' hear his name. Talebnasab weakness was in part responsible for Saipa winning the battle in the midfield and Dariush Yazadani shinning so much. Remember how Esteghlal dominated the first 20-30 minutes and then Saipa took over a big part of it was EsEs lost the middle.
When Talebnasab plays and is weak, Kazemi needs to be play more of a defensive role and that means he can't add up from behind and the second wave of attack from EsEs is weak. Even a traditional sub of Marfavi (Mansoorian in one midfielder out) would have helped EsEs midfield.

3. We are not in the practices and don't know the details, but I dont' know why Marfavi beleives in Alizadeh so much. Alizadeh, isnt' capable of the very most basic thing a forward needs to do(turning with the ball) and has really poor ball control. His passes (if he doesn't screw them up) 90% are back passes. Maybe some forum staff laugh at me, but Hashemizadeh that played one or two games for EsEs (scroed a goal against Esteghlal Ahwaz game) is much much better forward than Alizadeh IMHO. Morteza Hashemizadeh (I think he was a Shamooshak player), does great is pressing (10 times better than Alizadeh). Alizadeh contribution (besides his throw ins) in EsEs or even while he was in Perspolice is nil. As a matter of fact, as if EsEs plays with 10 players.

4. I dont' know what could Marfavi think for a Alizadeh Vs. Quickeh sub? If he wanted to defend the goal, addition of a defensive midfielder like Ebrahimi or even Lotfi seemed more logical. If he wanted to go for the second goal and don't take pressure off the Saipa, definitly Alizadeh wasn't a goal getter.

5. Marfavi is a young coach and doesn't have the experience for the big games yet. He doesn't seem to be able to rally the troops in big head to head games (Esteghlal lost to PP one game , Sepahan at least one game and Saipa twice). All of this is expected btw, since he is a very young coach, that came up through the ranks of Esteghlal youth and U23 team. While at this issue, I persoanlly would like to thank Marfavi to acheive this much with this sheer to sheer situation in EsEs. This guy at times acted as a head coach, manager and acted well under the presssure from media and all. He already has acheived a lot despite his technical, tactical mistakes. Compare his situation with other coaches like Denizli and Karimi that as soon as money is late or situation is tough, threaten to quit and don't go to practices and all that. Thanks Mr. Marfavi. I am sure Samad will be a great Head coach one day. These mistakes are part of the learning curve (which ideally he wouldn't have made if he was working under a good head coach).

Finally, for the record, I watched the game (last 30 minutes) and didnt' see any contribution from Dai (as a player, not as a coach while on the bench) while he was in the field (to remind a few people who in the other forum were asking him to be called up for TM (now that is a novel idea)).

Again congrats to Dai and Saipa and let the best team win. But two more weeks left, Messe Kerman is playing good lately, so who know, maybe EsEs needs a favor from a bad ass coach like Farhad Kazemi to get the title this year.



Anyhow, I suggest we dont' make too much of this one game. It was a game that could have been gone either way and Saipa did better and converted when it counted.

P.S. For those of you who watched the game on IRIB2, did you listen to the comments of the so called football expert (I think his name was Mohammadi). I was wondering what did this guy smoked before the game or which game was he watching? He remarked at half time that Saipa "had 7 high quality chances on EsEs's goal". Can you beleive it? Who is this guy? Was he a former player? Which team? Probably he was a PP who just hated EsEs and his commentry was motivated by PP-EsEs rivalry.

[Ali Chicago]

On a related note, I think EsEs revival on the past few weeks , has been in part due to the Amirabadi Yousefi duo. AmirAbadi had a tremendous game on Sunday which was overshadowed by the loss. Both of these guys are complete player (at leaset for IPL standard), good technique, participat in both ends of the game (offense and defense), hussler, great work ethic, on and on. If only Amirabadi could improve his crosses. EsEs is alive again due to the runs from both left (yousefi) and right (Amirabadi).

I love to see GN invites Yousefi and Amirabadi to the TM. They are not the starter material (yet), but they will pull the rug behind the startes and make the starters to work harder to keep their spot.

[Ali Chicago]

kasra khan, we have no choice but to use talebnasab, who can we use to replace him?
our best alternative is to to play both alizadeh and kwike upfront and move akbarpour one line back and replace talebnasab

Play Ebrahimzadeh and release Kazemi from DM. you will see the difference. Kazemi loves to join the attack, remember his shot against Barghe Shiraz (he was posted right at the edge of the 18 yard box ready for the shot). He loves to sneak behind the box and line up for the rebound shots.

[Ali Chicago]

It was more of poor defense than a great offense. the two shouldn't be mixed.

Neither Saipa nor SS showed any defensive capability. almost every attempt by the opposing team was a dangerous one. Today, we had two defensive lines performing very poorly. And come to think of it, if these teams had better finishers, the score line would have been 6-5 or 7-6!
.......

Well said. I totally agree with your post but in particular poor defense on both ends. It just happened Fekri at 36 was worst than Farzaneh Hosseini duo at the other end.

[zzgloo]

I like to invite the attention of my fellow members here to some points about this game....
This game was not a typical Iranian league game,as it was faster, with far more chances for score, which resembled a european club games.......and if thats the case...what was the reason ?...
was it because, they were coached more aggresively ? or was the game coached more european style ?.....
after the game, daei said, he planed the game, based on esteghlal's weaknesses....hence, it was as they knew what,esteghlal was doing..and therefore, ususaly, when, a team is in corner ( as esteghlal was estrategicaly ), they use exterem majores, and conterattac, as to respond to the opponant......
and if these were the case.....does that mean, In Iranian league, coaches, just do not plan,based on the opponant's weakenesses, or they just do not comprehend, as well as Daei....

My, conclusion,is that.....The slow pace of iranian league, is not necessarly the fault of players,or cultural problem...but rather....the game planning,has always,been on a conservative side, and less studied !!