WAFF Games Pros and Cons

[Ali Chicago]

First of all Congrats on Iran winning the WAFF games again. I would like to get an evaluation of Iran's performance in these games:

Positives:
1- Players got consistant playing time to establish themselves under the TM name, get over the emotional hurdle and gel together
2- Introduction of at least three (Roudbarian, Hosseini, Rajabzadeh) and max fine (Badamaki and Baykzadeh) who will be considered for serious subs if not even starting position in the AFC.
3- Preliminary sign of better tactical soccer from our side. Numerous times, I counted more than 10 consecutive passes in the offenisve third of the field.
First signs of tactical maturity in the following ares: (I am not saying we are perfect in these areas but our team showed preliminary signs)
Pressure the ball from the location it was lost
Switching the game
Speeding up and slowing down the game
Very good transition during the attack, ok defensive transition (but we were playign against slow build Arabic teams, so I reserve judgement on that).
4- Introudction of feature generation of players (Ashobi, Shays, shapourzadeh,...) to the football fans.
5- Estblishing emotional supremacy for our football before the main AFC tournament (our B team can win WAFF and beat Iraq and Jordan at their home).
6- The biggest outcome of the WAFF in my opinion was introduciton of Rajabzadeh and Hosseini and Roudbarian though. These three players showed when they are given the role as starter and feel they have the confidence of coaching staff, they can show case their talent.
Roudbarian showed he is very comfortable in the air (coming out of the goal and collecting the corner or free kicks or punchign them). I am a EsEs fan but I totally admit, neither Taleblou or Rahmati (both EsEs goalies) are comfortable in this area.
Hosseini showed a lot of leadership and reading the play and I was totally and I mean totally impressed with him keeping his cool (except one instance) in the Iraq's game (emtional control).
Rajabzadeh (What a gam!!!!). I really mean it. This guy is a gem. I was'nt lucky to watch this fella to play. What a performance. What a heart. What a brain, what a vision, what a technique and timing. I can't say enough about his performance in WAFF.

5-6 of our players got more than 200 minutes of playing time (which normally they wouldnt' have). Consider Enayati or even Ranjabazeh. In our A team these guys wont' get this much playing time. I think Rajabzadeh if get playing time in AFC will be fantastic. While on this topic (AFC performance), I have a good feeling that Zandi will be fantastic. I talked to a freind of mine in Tehran and he told me, while he was talkign to GN, GN was very pleased with Zandi's performance (supposedly, he has improved (according to GN's evealuation) quite a bit on the defensive end of the game as well).

On the coaching front, I liked the fact the coaching staff picked players that were among the best for the position that they were playing for 90% of the positions. They probably realized they wont' have much time to teach the player all the ins and outs of playing in a new post. Rahmati, Ashoubi, Rajabzadeh, Hooseini, Shiri, Shays all played the positions that they played in the leauge. This saved a lot of training time. Players were comfortable in their own skin (i.e. position).



NEGATIVES

Players are still very emotional. The game against Iran showed how our player still aren't professional enough and haven't developed emotionally to deal with the pressure of a big game.

Coaching staff didn't use the subs properly. Subs were very late and in few instances totally wrong (IMHO). For example Baoo's substituation yesterday. Baoo is a fantasy type player. We are down one player and our team need a tough player to go and challenge every ball and wouldn't mind to tackle and slow down Iraqis.
Mobali needed to be subbed. It was obvous he was very emotional and he is going to get into trouble and he didnt' have a great day. So coaching staff should have been pro active.

The area behind Shays when he attacked was somewhat suspicious.



Overall, I think winning WAFF was a good emotional boost, a confidence builder for our team.

Good luck to TM and Zendeh va Payendeh baad Iran.

[Ali Chicago]

It seems the edit button doesn't work for me. I even don't see the edit button for my own post in the first place. I wanted to edit a few spellins mistakes and clarify a few things in this post. Am I the only one who has a problem with edit button?

[Adesor Vafaseya]

edit button is there only for a short time after you post... then it disapears....


Anyway, great analysis. We got to congratulate to Coach Mazloomi as well!

all in all these games are all practices and its good to let the B team to participate in them. And we have some new candidates, who had the chance to show themselves at B levels to be (hopefully) taken to the A team!
That is for me an important Pro of such tournaments. "player observation and selection for A team"!

[Ali Chicago]

edit button is there only for a short time after you post... then it disapears....
Anyway, great analysis. We got to congratulate to Coach Mazloomi as well!
all in all these games are all practices and its good to let the B team to participate in them. And we have some new candidates, who had the chance to show themselves at B levels to be (hopefully) taken to the A team!
That is for me an important Pro of such tournaments. "player observation and selection for A team"!

Thanks for your explanation about the edit button, kind words and your input. Looking forward to have more dialoguges.

[khabalood]

Hosseini was the highlite of the tournament in my opinion, although Roudbarian also played well. Hosseini was dominant and I was amazed at the ease with which he did his job. He should definately be a starter come the Asia Cup. IFF should continue to send the B team or U23 team to compete in the WAFF in future years.

[yashar_fasihnia]

thanx.

just to let u know, ghalenoi appeared on navad tonight and it seems he has plans of using zandi and kia as the 2 full backs in a 4 back system.

we will most pribably play 4-3-3 (which changes to 4-5-1 during defense) against ghana and in this type of formation, zandi and kia are first candidates for full backs.
kaabi and kazemian are more for the right midfield position although it will be most probably teymourian on right, karimi on left and nekounam in middle.
the 3 forwards will most probably be hashemian in middle, enayati on left and khatibi on right.

the only 2 positions ghalenoi failed to hint out who will play, atleast against ghana was the GK position and the central defender next to rezai.

[Ali Chicago]

thanx.
just to let u know, ghalenoi appeared on navad tonight and it seems he has plans of using zandi and kia as the 2 full backs in a 4 back system.
we will most pribably play 4-3-3 (which changes to 4-5-1 during defense) against ghana and in this type of formation, zandi and kia are first candidates for full backs.
kaabi and kazemian are more for the right midfield position although it will be most probably teymourian on right, karimi on left and nekounam in middle.
the 3 forwards will most probably be hashemian in middle, enayati on left and khatibi on right.
the only 2 positions ghalenoi failed to hint out who will play, atleast against ghana was the GK position and the central defender next to rezai.

Interesting. Based on the way we played in WAFF I thought we will mostly play a 3-6-1 or 4-5-1, but 4-3-3 that will be interesting.
Yashar khan, do you recall I said, Zandi not getting invited isn't anything ideological. I think GN is a very pragmatic person, for his own sake (success), he will use anybody or anything. That is how he survived in Esteghlal. Anyhow, wish Mr. Zandi do great and fix our left side. Hard to imagine Zandi getting down dirty and tackle and challenge in the air. I always had an image of fantasy type of player from him.

[yashar_fasihnia]

Interesting. Based on the way we played in WAFF I thought we will mostly play a 3-6-1 or 4-5-1, but 4-3-3 that will be interesting.
Yashar khan, do you recall I said, Zandi not getting invited isn't anything ideological. I think GN is a very pragmatic person, for his own sake (success), he will use anybody or anything. That is how he survived in Esteghlal. Anyhow, wish Mr. Zandi do great and fix our left side. Hard to imagine Zandi getting down dirty and tackle and challenge in the air. I always had an image of fantasy type of player from him.

well 4-3-3 will change to 4-5-1 during the game, specially defense.

abour zandi, i recall wat u said but:
1)ghalenoi explicitly had mentioned the first day when he invited 40 players "aghaye fereydune zandi jayi tu barnamehaye man nadare". i saw it myself, live on TV in an interview after publishing the list.it had nothing to do with zandi not being on top form otherwise he would have said it. also notice that this happened just after the worldcup and many players were also looking for clubs or even if they had clubs had not started training yet, so their fitness wouldnt be much better than zandi's anywayz.

2)ghalenoi inviting zandi in my opinion was ideological. ghalenoi in the beginning came out as a very brave coach who tried to prove branko was wrong in many things including player selections. he left out kaabi, shojaei, zandi. yet, now he has invited all of them back. he realized his mistake and invited them back after realizing we dont have better players than these guys (im sure u recall ur conversation where u even said zandi wasnt among the top 40 players of iran!!!!)
he brought farhad majidi but again realized his mistake.
i even think he preferred talebloo over mirzapour (im not sure of this cos mirzapour was injured that time, so i cant say it for a fact) but then, changed his mind and realized that mirzapour is still our number 1 GK and even mentioned it explicitly on TV.

however, im glad he did this, atleast he is a person who has the courage to realize his mistakes, admit it and try to make necessary changes. this by itself is more than 75% of solving the problem!

i think ghalenoi came very self confident thinking its all a piece of cake and he can handle even esteghlal while working with TM but slowly, slowly, he woke up from this dream and got more in touch with reality, which again is a good sign like i said. he is more professional and diplomatic now than before because he has experienced a lot in this short period of time.

[The-Red]

great observations.


I said on some other thread and I say it again that I still think we should have taken a younger team there and include some more u21-23 players in there,,,most of the AC team is already established and I doubt we really needed this to pick the few left, but it was still a good competition for all the reasons you mentioned.

[gol_kuchik]

I really did not see much positive. ok we beat Palestine which does not have the permission to practice, and most players are regularly denied permit to return and train with their team. We beat 87 ranked Jordan and then we played 45 minutes against war torn Iraq.

Bascially, the same crap as we saw in Mexico except the teams here (consider the best ranked Iraq is only ranked 86 in the world) were much weaker.

ok, after 3 games our best of IPL team could manage to make 4 straight passes! Let's call a national holiday. It was simply patheitc that after 15 minutes and first goal we went into GRASS ROLLING and time wasting to the point the announcer said, this is way too early for this.

I could understand, (although I NEVER approve) grass rolling against a much tougher team like Ireland. But grass rolling aginst Iraq? Was that not truly embarassing? Rajabzadeh was completely out of breath by minute 80. That is our IPL leading goal scorer! So why not make a few subs? while having this display of kicking the ball from our own 10 meter to desparately save another ball, like we are playing Netherland and the year is 1976! Last I checked, football is played over 90 minutes not 45.

Next, we probably celebrate beating a handicapped team .....

I don't know how well we do in Asian Cup. The battle will be between our EU players reasoning (to not injure themselves for their clubs sake) or put everything on line for TM. If the former prevails, I am afraid we would see a sad end to this venture as well. If the latter, our "football" will once again be saved by the heorics of players and individual efforts and nothing more.

The positive:
If in fact the trophy was lost while in Iran, they have 1 more year to make a perfect replica.

[Ali Chicago]

I really did not see much positive. ok we beat Palestine which does not have the permission to practice, and most players are regularly denied permit to return and train with their team. We beat 87 ranked Jordan and then we played 45 minutes against war torn Iraq.

Bascially, the same crap as we saw in Mexico except the teams here (consider the best ranked Iraq is only ranked 86 in the world) were much weaker.

ok, after 3 games our best of IPL team could manage to make 4 straight passes! Let's call a national holiday. It was simply patheitc that after 15 minutes and first goal we went into GRASS ROLLING and time wasting to the point the announcer said, this is way too early for this.

I could understand, (although I NEVER approve) grass rolling against a much tougher team like Ireland. But grass rolling aginst Iraq? Was that not truly embarassing? Rajabzadeh was completely out of breath by minute 80. That is our IPL leading goal scorer! So why not make a few subs? while having this display of kicking the ball from our own 10 meter to desparately save another ball, like we are playing Netherland and the year is 1976! Last I checked, football is played over 90 minutes not 45.

Next, we probably celebrate beating a handicapped team .....

I don't know how well we do in Asian Cup. The battle will be between our EU players reasoning (to not injure themselves for their clubs sake) or put everything on line for TM. If the former prevails, I am afraid we would see a sad end to this venture as well. If the latter, our "football" will once again be saved by the heorics of players and individual efforts and nothing more.

The positive:
If in fact the trophy was lost while in Iran, they have 1 more year to make a perfect replica.

God. Guess we are on different planets. The same Jordan team almost pushed us out to the verge of elimination back in 2004. Beating Iraq for WC 2002 qualification was a big acheivement under Blaz in Baghdad and Tehran and to be honest, we beat them in Iran by a very suspicious goal (to offside by kia in Azadi).

Guess it is matter of seeing half full vs. Half empty. If nothing else see goals scored by Badamaki and Rajabzadeh and Baykzadeh. Two years ago Iran scoring from 30 yards out woudln't ever happened (except one shot by Bagheri against South Korea in Lebenon).

Guess time will show.

[Ali Chicago]

....
abour zandi, i recall wat u said but:
1)ghalenoi explicitly had mentioned the first day when he invited 40 players "aghaye fereydune zandi jayi tu barnamehaye man nadare". i saw it myself, live on TV in an interview after publishing the list.it had nothing to do with zandi not being on top form otherwise he would have said it. also notice that this happened just after the worldcup and many players were also looking for clubs or even if they had clubs had not started training yet, so their fitness wouldnt be much better than zandi's anywayz.
2)ghalenoi inviting zandi in my opinion was ideological. ghalenoi in the beginning came out as a very brave coach who tried to prove branko was wrong in many things including player selections. he left out kaabi, shojaei, zandi. yet, now he has invited all of them back. he realized his mistake and invited them back after realizing we dont have better players than these guys (im sure u recall ur conversation where u even said zandi wasnt among the top 40 players of iran!!!!)
.....

Yashar Khan, the gist of discussion was that many people claimed GN has an ideaological reason for not inviting him. My observation was and always has been GN is very very pragmatic. He is not someone like Hejazi who is very principaled.
When I said at the time Zandi wasn't among the top 40 players I still think I am right and events to a large degree verifies my observation. Zandi had that strange sickness. Kaiserslauten didn't sign him he went to Kublnez and didn't last there. He went to Cypruss. Now, if Zandi is really on the way back, maybe he will shine in AFC and he will get a good contract offer.

Point is GN is very pragmatic. I am sure you will see he won't even probably play 3-5-2 that everybody blames him is an outdated mothod. Pragmatisem of GN is all over, if one wants to see it. Bringing De Jong for EsEs is another example. I was talking with Fardali Nia brothers and one of them told me, that while TM was in UAE for those frinedly games against Hamburg and Stutguart, GN constantly was asking questions and feed back from Heshmat Mohajerani.

It is not important what I said, or what you said in the past. I think the important point is getting to know GN's personality.

[gol_kuchik]

God. Guess we are on different planets. The same Jordan team almost pushed us out to the verge of elimination back in 2004. Beating Iraq for WC 2002 qualification was a big acheivement under Blaz in Baghdad and Tehran and to be honest, we beat them in Iran by a very suspicious goal (to offside by kia in Azadi).
Guess it is matter of seeing half full vs. Half empty. If nothing else see goals scored by Badamaki and Rajabzadeh and Baykzadeh. Two years ago Iran scoring from 30 yards out woudln't ever happened (except one shot by Bagheri against South Korea in Lebenon).
Guess time will show.

I did say we played 45 minutes of football. This is what we have been doing
since WC. 45 minutes and then zip. The Jordanian team is very different
than the one 2 years ago. Other than the fact that they had some of their
players, their motivation level was next to nothing. Remember they have
nothing to look forward to as far as Asian Cup, and don't forget Iraqis had
more fans cheering for them in Jodran, than when the Jordanian played against us!

Against Iraq, we just had nothing in the tank for 2nd half, and resorted to
anti-football. Sure, the ref was baised against us but we just preferred to
commit foul after foul and did not play quality football.

[kaz]

Yashar Khan, the gist of discussion was that many people claimed GN has an ideaological reason for not inviting him. My observation was and always has been GN is very very pragmatic. He is not someone like Hejazi who is very principaled.
When I said at the time Zandi wasn't among the top 40 players I still think I am right and events to a large degree verifies my observation. Zandi had that strange sickness. Kaiserslauten didn't sign him he went to Kublnez and didn't last there. He went to Cypruss. Now, if Zandi is really on the way back, maybe he will shine in AFC and he will get a good contract offer.
Point is GN is very pragmatic. I am sure you will see he won't even probably play 3-5-2 that everybody blames him is an outdated mothod. Pragmatisem of GN is all over, if one wants to see it. Bringing De Jong for EsEs is another example. I was talking with Fardali Nia brothers and one of them told me, that while TM was in UAE for those frinedly games against Hamburg and Stutguart, GN constantly was asking questions and feed back from Heshmat Mohajerani.
It is not important what I said, or what you said in the past. I think the important point is getting to know GN's personality.

Add that some said he was against Zandi because GN didn't like 'khareji'-like Iranians or that he was racist or some other BS. GN said he didn't fit into his plans first, then he elaborated and said that whilst Zandi didn't have a team he couldn't possibly be considered and as soon as he started turning in some performances in Cyprus he was retried.

We don't give the man credit where he deserves it and bash him 10x more than necessary if we see something wrong.

[KasraKhan]

thanx.
just to let u know, ghalenoi appeared on navad tonight and it seems he has plans of using zandi and kia as the 2 full backs in a 4 back system.
we will most pribably play 4-3-3 (which changes to 4-5-1 during defense) against ghana and in this type of formation, zandi and kia are first candidates for full backs.
kaabi and kazemian are more for the right midfield position although it will be most probably teymourian on right, karimi on left and nekounam in middle.
the 3 forwards will most probably be hashemian in middle, enayati on left and khatibi on right.
the only 2 positions ghalenoi failed to hint out who will play, atleast against ghana was the GK position and the central defender next to rezai.

I don't see the logic in playing a 4-3-3 with our current squad for many reasons:

1) We only have one stable, professional, and legtimiate forward in this team, and that is Hashemian. By playing a 3 striker formation, we are forced to play 2 more players in a position that we are already weak in.

2) TM has the most depth in midfield, thus it would be logical to use a midfield heavy formation. The 4-5-1 (4-2-3-1) would be ideal. In this case, we can exploit our strenght (midfield) and minimize our weakness (forward)

3) GN has stated that he will start Kia as RB. I was always against playing Kia in RB for TM for a few reasons. The only reason he was playing RB for HSV is because they were talented on the right and thats why Kia was benched. He gained his spot back in the starting lineup as a RB, not a RM. But Kia, naturally, is a right-wing. It is his best position. He was involved in a majority of TM goals in the 2004 AC and 2006 WCQ. He is still very a vital component of TM's attack. Putting him at RB in TM would lessen his involvement in Iran's attack. Rather, Enayati and Khatibi will gain more inolvement.

4) Zandi at LB? Is this a joke? Zandi's posotion is CAM. How would you figure playing him at LB? Just because he is a left-footed player does NOT mean that he can play on the left wing. Especially a left back position. That is like putting Karimi or Mobali at RB just because they are right footed.

5) If we play the 4-5-1, we can include Kaebi as RB. Kaebi has been a very important player for TM in that past few years. He was arguably our best player in the WC. The thing that you have to respect, is that he shines on the big stage. He did well in the WC, and the past AC. And thats what we need in TM, players who shine and perform under pressure. But by playing the 4-3-3, Kaebi will be a sub and Enayati/Khatibi will start instead. Not a smart move.

I think GN is trying to be different and innovative here. If he goes out with the 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1, then he will be accussed of copying Branko.