Syria Post match comments and rating

[maij]

The problems of Team Melli are much more gigantic than having a defensive player or If Nikki is playing out of position or if ....etc.

Agha Hadi has summarized it well....Get the foundation working, then talk about tactics and who should be where and when.

To sum up the situation. The fact remains that we, out our passion and love





I have said it elsewhere ...I have never been concerned about a match as the one against Syria.... I was proven half right, in fact I think , if Rahmati was not at top form , the result could have been different....Why I had this negative feelings ? Well. The chaos and disorganization was one reason and the form of the players was another , amongst many other reasons.

The whole system has flaws , including the fact that the likes of Teymourian and Mahdavikia can turn up a day or two before the match and are automatically starting and completing the match ( please....don't think I am blaming them for the poor result)

Get your house in order, then you will reap the results.

[purple_haze]

Yes totally, in fact this is what I wrote after the match:

Oh look, PFDC crowd are at it again, what a surprise!

I hate to say it but I was right about so many things that I predicted. But this also helped me not to get as upset as most of the people in here are.

Remember the thread where I said this:

I also think that a loss is a long shot and is unlikely to happen.
I said even before today's match that we should NOT underestimate our opponents and think we're set. We have to be realistic here and face the truth. We're not at the best shape at the moment, our gears aren't tuned up and frankly we're not having the same level of talent that we've gotten used to in the past 10 years. Just watch our players do the most basic in football, which would be ball control and you'll see what I mean.


I practiced what I preached and lowered my expectations based on reality. I didn't base it on the typical persian pride, the same one that makes our entire people think that that the ruling empire of 2500 years ago, happened just yesterday afternoon and that we don't need to work hard to achieve things, because hey...we are persians!

A lot of people jumped on and attacked those of us who warned that something like this was going to happen. Sadly even some of the elder and wiser ones followed suit and claimed this would be a walk in a park because...well, I'll have to repeat it again, simply because we are Iran. But my dear friends, that just don't cut it anymore.

Optimism is great, but in conjunction with realism. We shouldn't make it to a fantasy-like false hope!

I chose to be realistic about the situation, based on facts. One of them based on the performance that TM has put on in the last 1,5 years. Although some people refuse to see it, even in the AC and before, the signs were there that most of the stars we're on decline and we were not producing equal replacements at any fast rate. Another fact based on the administration and management or should I say the lack of such for almost as long time.

It's time to wake up and smell the coffee. It's time to get off our high and mighty horses and deal with what's real. The other teams have prepared, we haven't.
I was disappointed too and hoped for a lucky goal up until the last second, but I didn't get shocked because I was mentally prepared for it.

Basically, Syria was just as good as I thought they'd be and we were just as bad as I had predicted. I'm not a fortune teller nor a psychic. I just expected this based on what I had seen so far.

Now you can go ahead and swear at this or that. Blame anyone you like. But the way I see it, you have to blame yourselves a bit too for over estimation, exaggeration and expecting too much.

Learn to be patient, be optimistic, but get real!

[Doctor DOOM]

I think dissecting our football and finding the remedies has TWO sides, as we've gone over a million times before.
there are short term goals and there are long term goals.
there are immediate matters that need to be addressed and there are matters that need patient, fundamental approach.

All the discussions on the long term and fundamental needs of our football are correct and need to be tackled. no doubt. and we have discussed them in other threads.
but at the moment, we cannot ignore the more immediate needs and more simple remedies.
surely you all dont think unless we fix our horrible infrastructure and cultural deficiencies we shd not go ahead with the WCQ campaign. do you?


well, I said it before and will say it again; there's no need to lose hope or think we're in trouble as far as the first round is concerned.
we WILL qualify for the next round.
in fact I bet we do otherwise I'll change my name.

and lets not make this draw into an irreversible catastrophe, shall we?
I see so much doom and gloom and hopeless threads and posts in the football forum it made me lose my apetite !! ( and believe me it takes a LOT to do that to me ) such mournful, hopeless, futility spread across the board ! "black days", "dark age", "disaster", "loss & despair", ... ! all doom & gloom.
WTF !!?!?!
that's MY job. Now, here I am trying to rally the troops !
what the HELL ???!?!?!?!
now if I saw us playing this bad, and drawing at home against syria while looking so impotent and disorganized after 5-6 months of coaching, THEN we can panic. not now.
It's all fine. not great, but imminently salvageable.

I mean we are NOT beyond repair to see such reactions all over ! In fact with a little tweak here and there, a couple of months of good coaching, a little juggling of the line up, we can GLIDE through the phase, even after this game. yes, with minute changes here and there.

we're gonna win the very same syria IN SYRIA. you can take that to the bank, fellas.
( and yes. even by that time, our shortcomings & deficiencies in facilities, programming, culture and ... will remain unresolved. or at best, slightly tended to. not becoz some of us, like me, want these little sporadic positive outbursts and short-term remedies. but becoz ultimately it is IRI that makes our football's fate and we know how irresponsible and incompetent they are when it comes to such matters )

[Doctor DOOM]

now, back to the topic.

this is what the syrian cap said;
مهاجم تیم ملی فوتبال سوریه اضافه کرد : تیم ما با شناخت کامل مقابل ایران قرار گرفت و می دانستیم چگونه باید تیم ایران را کنترل کنیم و اطمینان دارم با همین شرایط می توانیم در دمشق ایران را شکست دهیم.

apart from the usual rhetoric and boasts when a smaller team gets to hurt a bigger one that we read everytime, there is another point that is worth pondering on.

till a couple of years back one of the methods smaller arab teams used, to cause trouble for us was their time wasting tactics & grass rolling, and before that, abuse of the players by their players, crowds ... . and we never failed to show our sensitivity and reaction towards these acts which underlined the fact that such acts DO affect us.

Now, either we have gotten past it or gotten used to it or have found a way to block it... I dont know, but we arent as sensitive to such acts as before.

playing ultra-compact and dense formation seems to be another one of the tactics that have shown to be fruitful to our weaker opponents as we have shown our coaches are NOT ABLE to cope with it and get stumped. both branko and GN suffered from this. EZ faced the same thing too.

I have noticed that when we face such situations neither the players nor the staff do much about it. and I think it is high time we recognized this weakness and attack it ASAP, becoz we are going to face more of it further on.
One thing that brightens the hope is if clemente comes, I'm sure with his vast experience he'd recognize it and resume to solve and produce methods to battle it.

Even if he doesnt sign, I hope anyone we get does something about it urgently.
the sad thing is in theory we KNOW what can be done to counter it. and even sadder is the fact that we do HAVE the kind of players to be able to do the right things. it's just a matter of application of it. that's all.

shooting, wide plays, set pieces, ... are your everyday variety tactics that we see everywhere and we have plenty of good players who CAN do all these. just need someone to constantly alert them and push it into their heads and remind them.

a little EXTRA shooting practice, free kicks, and wing play will go a long way for us.
also you can never put a price on "an early goal" that ruins the plans of such teams and forces them to open up , which always is good for us. so a furious concentrated attack early on into the game shd increase our chances.

and why I say early on, apart from the obvious reasons, is given our player's make up, the more time goes by and we get closer to the end, the less focused and controlled ( more emotional ) are our players, also the opponent gets more resolute in keeping the shut down going.