Kuwait - Iran game.

[Doctor DOOM]

Today we shd have lost and would have deserved to lose.
in fact a slightly better team than kuwait would have THRASHED us by 5-6 goals !!!

not only did the team didnt play all that well, which is excusable becoz the team was formed recently only. I will never cite lack of teamwork or cohesion this early.
coz then I'd have expected more possession football from the team from minute 30 onwards.
let me also say in this aspect the team showed some improvement in passing and gives hope for better future.



but we lost also becoz of series of individual mistakes, and MAJORLY some horrible coaching ! yes, Daei has to answer for this screw up.


---------------

1- The most glaring and clear coaching mistake is making far too many changes to our defense line which was slowly taking shape and slowly becoming stable.
I can understand the need for bringing new faces and slowly inject them. but this was way too many changes!
3 new players out of 4 ? that's 75% changes !!
and a very young player placed in a position that we had kaabi, was his FIRST TIME to play for TM !!!
ABSURD !

Now we see why Daei shd NEVER have insisted on striking off Aghili, who was more of a stable, experienced defender who was more used to hosseini, his side player.
this was already discussed before.
yet another negative mark on coaching.


none of the defenders maintained their positions and zones. especially in receiving set pieces.
there were many occasions both our right and left defenders were found missing in their zones and the second goal was a result of this.


-------------

2- next coaching mistake:
we reach the absolutely pathetic and disastrous issue of set pieces.
I dont want to go to each one coz one was worse than the other!
but can somebody tell me how many freaking freekicks did we get?
any team with this many freekicks would have scored a goal at least and would have created 3-4 dangerous moments.
we did NOTHING !!
NOTHING !!

PATHETIC is an understatement.

the height of this misery was when we see a player run to the side-lines and take permission from hi coach to please let me take the freekick !!!
DISGUSTING !

aghaye morabi, who the f**k shd decide which player to take what kind of set piece ? ammeh-ye man ?
we got so many freekicks around the 18 ( as was expected and discussed before ) but we saw a different player take each one !
WTF ?

aghaye morabi, aghaye "international", if you are going to deal with the matter of "set pieces" as some rudimentry and formal nuisance and want to merely do what we call "Raaf-e masooliyat" or "raaf-e takleef" , then why waste time, agha jan?
just tell the players to hand the ball over to the other team and not waste more time !


the sad thing is of ALL those players who took the freekicks, the poor fellow who was FORCED TO beg his coach's permission DURING THE GAME ( just kicks you in the nuts, doesnt it ? ), did the BEST among all of them!!
doesnt that make you pause ?
makes one cry over the stupidity of it all.


-----------------

3- the third coaching mistake:

I'm sorry to say we are still suffering from laj-baazi and stubbornness by our coaches !
yet another gift from branko days.
what the HELL was sadeghi doing the whole time that warranted him playing for 90 minutes.
no. lets ask a different question:
what did he do in the last few games ( especially his poor form in saipa ) that made him a better option than a player like JABBARI ?

aghaye morabi, agar mikhahid hamoon ghod baazi-ha va laj baazi-ha ro tekrar konid, vel kon boro, agha jan.
vel kon boro and save your reputation, coz we have seen how this story ends !


Jabbari, when he came in was an absolute joy to watch. fantastic in getting the team moving and get more positive.
so much that our last 10-12 minutes was so positive that I was wondering what if instead of sadeghi, jabbari had started. or what if sadeghi was subbed for jabbari at the halftime?
makes you wonder, huh?



----------------------

4- SHOOTING.

aghayoon, zaboonemoon moo dar avord, az bas goftim "shoot", shoot , shoot, ... !!!
did we even take ONE long ranger the whole game?
I dont recall !
why? isnt it some method to get a goal too?


especially when we all saw how weak the kuwaiti keeper is in assessing the height and speed of the ball.
our "supposed" second goal shd have prompted this in the team.

---------------------


and these are just a few personal issues:

A) SHOJAEI - in the past game we saw clearly that Shojaei is NOT very productive on the side-lines and flanks.
he needs space on BOTH sides of him. he showed it the few times he came to the center and played far better football than on the flank.
why the insistence to TRAP him on one side ?


B) NIKI rahmati - 9 ( cant say he did anything wrong )

hosseini - 7 (not the dependable AC07 . had some mistakes and some brilliant tackles )

bengar - 5 ( had a few mis-leaps and mis-hits. I'd have given an arm to have aghili in his place )

gholamnejad - 5 ( promising talent, but horrible in positioning himself on several occasions. I put it due to inexperience and youth tho' )

Beikzadeh - 6 ( same as gholamnejad. had a pretty nice freekick. I wish he was given more of those )

sadeghi - 4 ( was invisible in long periods of the game. )

ando - 6 ( pretty nice interceptions, but his forward play was just too poor ! )

madanchi - 7 ( did fine. I was surprised to see him subbed, instead of niki )

karimi - 9 ( excellent , brilliant game. havent seen this level from him in a long long time )

shojaei - 7 ( had lots of ups and downs in ONE game! and that's not good. but I put it due to wrong positioning of him by the coach. a bit selfish on a few occasions )

Niki - 5 ( and this 5 is ONLY and SOLELY becoz of his marvelous goal. after that, he was nothing !! shd have been subbed by halftime. Team-Melli is not a place for "taarof-baazi". even if you've scored a brilliant goal )


Jabbari - 8 ( for the little while he played, he energized the team so much that we looked like a totally different team with lot of positive moves and attitude )


meydavoodi - 6.5 ( didnt play much. was a nuisance to the kuwaiti defense and had a few nice runs and placements, one of which shojaei wasted by not passing. but was a victim of the cursed formation , as well as changed posts a few times , which makes the player unsettled )

khalili - not enough time to rate.

[Nokhodi]

The thing that really pisses me off about free kicks is that Branco was always criticized for only getting TM to score off set plays! Now we are begging to score a goal like that!
Not saying Branco was any better, but we Iranians like to smash all our plates on one head and all at one time when we're angry.

[Paradigm]

I wanted to add that all of these problems are exacerbated by the absence of Nekounam. For almost 4 years from 2003 to 2007 he was the constant element that created some badly needed level of coordination between the defense and forward lines. Also TM needs Kaabi on the right flank for creating serious opportunities and putting pressure on the opponent. I don't know why he has been benched. Zandi, Kaabi, and Kazemian belong back to the game.

[KasraKhan]

This team also needs Zandi really badly. The midfield can use his vision, passing, and shooting ability

Not to mention his FK taking talent, he would have surely bared one of those FK's we got in great position

[Doctor DOOM]

Now, when our coach says something like this, how can you not expect ppl to bring up the foolish decisions of leaving kaabi out and striking aghili off the roster , hence making the defense line so weak and unbalanced/uncoordinated with 75% overnight changes ?

سرمربی تیم ملی فوتبال کشورمان با ابراز تاسف از اینکه تیمش در دقایق پایانی پیروزی مقابل کویت را از دست داده است، اشتباهات مدافعان را مهمترین عامل در ثبت این نتیجه عنوان کرد.


دایی پیشرفت تیم ملی نسبت به دو دیدار گذشته با سوریه و بحرین را قابل توجه عنوان کرد و اظهار داشت : تیم ملی کاملا دگرگون شده و بازیکنان جوان و کم تجربه جایگزین نفراتی شدند که سالها در تیم ملی تجربه بازی داشتند و متاسفانه فرصتی برای هماهنگی این نفرات وجود نداشته و ناگزیر بودیم با همین شرایط در دیدارهای دشوار مرحله مقدماتی شرکت کنیم

Mr. Daei, you simply can NOT come AFTER the game and complain about the inexperience and youth of the defense line, when before the game you clearly had BETTER OPTIONS but chose not to use them.

if you had used the more stable and somewhat coordinated line up of :

kaabi ---- hosseini ----- aghili ----- XXXX

in effect, you'd be using 3 out of 4 players who are more or less used to playing together and have had some games under their belt.
they also would have been far more experienced ( which is definitely needed for AWAY crucial games) at this point in time when the rest of the team also is suffering from inexperience and lack of practice.

so any logical person would say even an island of stability within the team would have been wise and welcome.

but no.
you had to go and screw that one up too. by choosing :

gholamnejad ( a debutant )
beikzadeh ( only his second TM game )
bengar ( a second choice defender to the likes of aghili )
and hosseini

uh, uh. my friend.
after THIS screw up as a result of YOUR flawed selection, you dont get the luxury of complaining about inexperience.
noway.


=================

and if you are so gung-ho after "javan-garayee" then why keep the younger, more energetic, more creative, more balanced, more in form, more talented JABBARI on the bench, while you play the less talented, the less in form, the older sadeghi for 90 minutes ?

ghasame roobah ro bavar konim, ya dom-e khoroos ro ?

[Ali Chicago]

I missed the first 30 minutes of the game (stuck in traffic), but after that except the last 7 minutes of the game OUR TEAM WAS ZILCH IMO.

Nothing, absoloutly nothing. Kuwait deserved to win this game for sure. TV never showed the offside goal if it was truly offside or not (although from the limited angle they showed it actually did look offsdie).

Kuwaities despite probably being the weakest team in the group, toyed with us anyway they wanted. They went through the right side of our defense (despite the couragous effort by Gholamnezhad, to a lesser degree they went through Baykzadeh as well) and the center of defense was just like a highway for even weak Kuwaiti forwards.

For those who really read my posts, remember I talked about how Hosseini stays back. I guess coaching staff told him that, so he pushed forward and every time there was a big hole behind our defense. Benghar, Hosseini duo either need a lot of times to gel or probably not a good combo since both aren't fast.

I really don't know what Payman was thinking when he gave 7 to Hosseini. Well he socred a goal (I didn't see it btw yet). But his mistke cost us the first goal and time by time, center of our defense was shaky.

Besides teh last 8 minutes of game probably our team didn't show anything from 30th minutes (that I started to watch the game) up to 80the minutes.

This is n't to bash Daie or anything, he is new and needs time to mold the team his way, but overall future doesn't look bright right now.

For those who follow football internationally yesterday there were a whole bunch of friendlies. I watched US Poland in Poland (US won 3-0) and Argentine, Egypt and it dawned on me how much we have fallen behind. US although not a team to play Joga Bonita, but good it was a delight to watch US after watching Iran Kuwait. Or even Egypt.

I was thinking to myself our team competed toe to toe with US in WC 98 granted we were the luckier team to win, but compare today's US soccer team with our natioal team!!! The difference is staggering. US was pushing back Poland under Leo Beek Haker in Krakow Poland. Passes connected, collective pressure on the ball carrier from poland, fast transition. Compared that to our team melli, that was so slow that Kuwaities looked so fast against us.

All in all very disappointed and this isn't again to knock Daie. Just disappointed to watch a football team that keeps playing worst. What happened to the team melli that played US natioal team in the rose ball. Since 2005, I haven't seen a single game that I enjoy the Team Melli playing (except games agains Jamica and Ghana weak teams which doesn't count). But since I am football fan, kept hoping it gets better. I am a football "khoreh", but seriously thinking about not watching the team melli games anymore (just follow the news) since team is playing so crappy.

Payman gave a 9 to Karimi? Very generous again. Not saying he played bad or anything, but 9? In the whole Iranian team no one deserved a more than 6 (I think only Ando deserved that, although recently he is so pissed off the whole game that he is turning to another copy of Amir Hossein Sadeghi with unnecessary yellow card).

All in all very disappointing game. Thank god Daie has 70 days to the next game in June. I hope he can pull a rabbit out of this hat. I never was a Daie fan as a player, but right now, I hope he as a head coach can pull out a miracle and revive the TM football. PLease Mr. Daie. Even if we don't go to the WC final, let us as simple fan watch an exciting football game. The way our team played in the past (when players could dribble the man in front of them, or can string 6 passed together).

I can't beleive players like Khatibi and Enayati weren't called up when Nikki and Khalili play forward. Maydavoodi doesn't have the speed of Khatibi, granted he is younger.

Hope it is just my mental state and things are much better than the way I see them now.

[Hajagha]

The game was so elementary that there is no way I can talk about it. I am sure I will find a better game if I walk around campuses in my neighborhood.

There are much better things to do than spending my time watching these obese people trying to walk around the pitch.

Professional my a$$. Bunch of fake like the rest in that country.

[perspolees]

I missed the first 30 minutes of the game (stuck in traffic), but after that except the last 7 minutes of the game OUR TEAM WAS ZILCH IMO.

exactly how I felt too.

but the main question is are we surprised!!?

we did nothing and we were nothing!
WE HAVE BEEN LIKE THAT FOR MANY YEARS!

[khabalood]

I was pleasantly surprised to see glimpses of one touch passing between Karimi and Shojaei. Other than that, and two lucky goals the game was a disgrace and a slap in the face of all Irani football fans.

[yashar_fasihnia]

For those who really read my posts, remember I talked about how Hosseini stays back. I guess coaching staff told him that, so he pushed forward and every time there was a big hole behind our defense. Benghar, Hosseini duo either need a lot of times to gel or probably not a good combo since both aren't fast.

this happens because rahmati is a lines GK and in a flat 4 system, the GK acts as a sweeper which clearly in this case, rahmati cant cover this role.
hosseini is probably our slowest CB in TM, he reminds me of fekri in esteghlal and bagheri in perspolis - both holding the team back. nosrati is arguably our fastest CB but he isnt on good form at the moment either

bengar is a ferocious defender without a brain (or maybe its the lack of experience?? although he has played enough international games with sepahan under different relatively good coaches to know this by now!) i never really liked him and i dont think he deserves more than TM - B but anywayz.

hope aghillis situation gets back to normal by june

[zzgloo]

The game,and the play were very elementary......I do not know, if such country as Iran, needs as suffisticated a fan base, as we are .
we are just too much ahead of our true football class,!
Branko indeed did miracles !!
.................................................. ....
the negatives are so many, that I better not start to spell them out......and I just want to do my duty as a fan, and only talk positive...........
.................................................. ...
I know, so many have talked opposite of what I am going to say, but,I firmly believe,as often I suggested in previouse thread.........Nikbakht at the center forward, was an excellent choise....with, little loseing whieght and more incouragement, and better offensive plans, and better feed from the midfield, Nikbakht,may be the missing link,we have been looking for in the offense.

[Doctor DOOM]

and why is that, bahram jan?
why is niki such an excellent choice, even if he manages to achieve what he has not, in the past year ( which is lose weight ) ?

I have a feeling all those who tout niki as a good choice or those who give him high marks are heavily influenced by the goal ( that broke the 6 game drought ). as grateful as I am, but one goal does not make a man an excellent choice for a forward, especially the lone forward in this formation.
( take his goal out of the equation and your minds,if possible, and then assess his contribution throughout the game. what did he do that even warranted him staying on after the first half ? )
If bahram jan takes time to explain why niki is such a choice, perhaps I can understand and see it from his angle.

coz from MY angle, niki while having the right skeleton and height for such a role, lacks the intelligence and the skills for it.

[khabalood]

As long as we are keen on playing midfielders as strikers why not give Zandi a go? Odds on he will score more goals, even if they are from free kicks.

[Ali Chicago]

exactly how I felt too.
but the main question is are we surprised!!?
we did nothing and we were nothing!
WE HAVE BEEN LIKE THAT FOR MANY YEARS!

I see your point, but I am sure you saw the way our team played against USA team in Rose Ball back in 2000. Did you see the game? Those days, our team was able to peneterate and maintain possesion in offensive third of other teams.

Since 2005 I barely can watch any TM game where I see a good 7-8 passes in a row in the offensive thrid of the opposition. Changing the point of attack( switiching the ball). Maybe, my expectation has gone higher since I watch a lot of international football. But the team that came to US and played against Mexico and Ecuador or friendly game against USA later played much better in my opinion (under Poorhaydari). I don't expect Iran becomes Brazil, but I expect at least we dont' get worst.

[Ali Chicago]

this happens because rahmati is a lines GK and in a flat 4 system, the GK acts as a sweeper which clearly in this case, rahmati cant cover this role.
hosseini is probably our slowest CB in TM, he reminds me of fekri in esteghlal and bagheri in perspolis - both holding the team back. nosrati is arguably our fastest CB but he isnt on good form at the moment either
bengar is a ferocious defender without a brain (or maybe its the lack of experience?? although he has played enough international games with sepahan under different relatively good coaches to know this by now!) i never really liked him and i dont think he deserves more than TM - B but anywayz.
hope aghillis situation gets back to normal by june

Good point about Rahmati not coming out and playing like a sweeper, I didn't pay attention to that. Granted this can be part of the problem, but Agha Yashar if you look at Sayed Jalal in Asian games with Roudbarian in the gaol it was the same thing. Sayed Jalal killed Kolah Kaj and Noori for the same reason in those games. I mentioned it at the same time on those days, but I guess my point didn't get much traction. So while I can' deny the negative roles of Rahmati not coming out, I think this tendency of staying back by Sayed Jalal is more than just Rahmati issue.

In a way, Sayed Jalal is smart enough to know his weakness and trying to make up for it (so good for him), but his way of dealing with this, hurts out team.