Esteghlal should plan to get GN back!

[Paradigm]

The team has not been able to reach the respected ranks of only a few years ago when they were under GN's helm. He was to them what Hiddink was to South Korea and Australia. Don't get me wrong, GN was not such a great coach for TM but within his own niche among the blues he was admireably successful. During those years the blue team seemed like a cohesive unit still without any distinguished big names but were able to pull through "results" to get them into the top IPL spots. A pity they did not manage to compete in the Asian CL because of the procedural problems. Please give me your thoughts on this issue but let's keep the red vs. blue out of this conversation:-)

[yashar_fasihnia]

if esteghlal wants to have a coach from IPL itself, ghalenoi is byfar the best coach! no other coach has the passion, love, and understanding of esteghlal and its players than ghalenoi at the moment. he is young, charismatic to the players and can control players with attitudes and can instill into them passion and motivation for the club.

if we can get a better coach outside IPL, then even better and assign someone like marfavi or varmarziyar or hassanzadeh or even zarinche as his assisstant but i doubt this will happen.

ghalenoi has gone through a lot since he first came to esteghlal specially with his experience in TM and the ACL disqualification. this can be very valuable for him and esteghlal.
i really wish to see him back in esteghlal next season because not only he has show his team can produce results while playing a good football but also he can produce an immediate impact!

[maij]

The team has not been able to reach the respected ranks of only a few years ago when they were under GN's helm. He was to them what Hiddink was to South Korea and Australia. Don't get me wrong, GN was not such a great coach for TM but within his own niche among the blues he was admireably successful. During those years the blue team seemed like a cohesive unit still without any distinguished big names but were able to pull through "results" to get them into the top IPL spots. A pity they did not manage to compete in the Asian CL because of the procedural problems. Please give me your thoughts on this issue but let's keep the red vs. blue out of this conversation:-)

Quite agree , except that I would rate him much higher the many people as Team Melli coach.


I don't know what sort of politics is going on in the corridors of Esteghlal , but I really hope that he is given another shot. He is older and wiser and perhaps a little bit more subdued..

Ghalenoei is an asset that has to be nourished and supported

[Doctor DOOM]

There's only so much you can achieve, and then sustain this achievement, using THE SAME aging players day in day out, year after year.
look at ppl like mansourian, navazi, majidi ( yes, even majidi ), plus players who have been mere "weights" on the club with no justifiable performances like lotfi, ghorbani, ... etc. they got to go.
there is little influx of youth into ss system. yes, we see the odd ravankhah or yusefi ( you got borhani who is young. but the guy belongs to track & field not football pitches. that much is well known ). but that is not enough.

ss need an overhaul. and by bringing the same coaches who pander to "rafigh-baazi" and "relations" more than form and usefulness, ss will stagnate even more.

I have nothing against GN coming back to ss. he is among our better coaches, no doubt.
but imagine this. karimi may be working towards ridding ss of its excess baggage ( players mentioned above ) slowly. and wouldnt you be excited if you see a NEW ss without those 6-7 players ?
wouldnt that new ss have more room for improvement and maturation than the present one?


letting those players go does not mean ss will be left with no experience. you still have well experienced players like sadeghi, talebloo, montazeri, mani'ee, amirabadi, jabbari to come in and satisfy this need.
but I would let the following go: mansourian, ghorbani, lotfi, borhani, navazi, majidi, alizadeh, ... to make way for fresh, motivated and energetic ambitious younger players
( now, they'll have to BUY them from everywhere and spend money for this. and they have themselves to blame for not having a strong youth system like sepahan or zob or foolad that come into play at such times with no cost to the club )

think about it.

[zzgloo]

Human Afazeli said it well , during one of SS games......
He said, Esteghlal " JENSESH JOOR NIST ".............
what he meant ,the team ,unlike PP, is not cohesive,and is not well selected based on thier needs...
in some possitions they have too many players, in others they have no one at all................
haveing said that...I think, we are not giveing Karimi his fair chance....
He with his sick wife, and movement of his household and children and all to Tehran,in the middle of the season ?...
He is a better coach than this, and Esteghlal itself has other problems.
Nothing againsy GN, but even Marfavi did almost what GN did with Esteghlal, while the " JENS JOOR BOOD ".
Karimi needs time !!

[Doctor DOOM]

bahram jan, I dont think PP is very cohesive either ... at least not MENTALLY.
pp also has some useless and destructive elements that deserve to be kicked out like sheyss, mamani, even niki.

I'm afraid as long as these two clubs stay on their present course ( relying on stars produced by other clubs ), this kind of fluctuating fortunes will continue. as long as "names" and "party-baazi" rule in these two, they will remain inconsistent even in their victories, and will never reach their potential.
(they are exactly opposite of a club like sepahan. who has done away with the desperate need for "known stars" and has a full fledged youth system. and that has resulted in their CONSISTENCY. year after year, the ONLY team that remains a threat to the title is sepahan, while every other team appears and disappears from one year to the next )

and that is mainly due to their management.

in ss, I was intrigued by what karimi did a few months back ( making players run laps after the loss ). I did think he may have bigger plans for ss. maybe he is deliberately trying to alienate the "names" in ss so they'd either leave or play so bad that makes firing them justifiable.
maybe karimi has the major overhaul in mind.
I dont know. but that will not happen unless ss management agrees to such drastic measures and changes.

will they?

[Ali Chicago]

.....
I'm afraid as long as these two clubs stay on their present course ( relying on stars produced by other clubs ), .....

will they?

This isn't true about SS. SS has a very extensive youth programs and its teams are among the top contenders in the u19 and u21 league in Iran. Even during the shah regime, Taj had a set of sattelite clubs Afsar, Dayheem, and introduced a lot of good players to Iranian football. But beacause it is a top club in Iran, it buys players as well. Same way that Man United or Arsenal have youth programs but still buy a lot of superstars as well.

During the past 5-7 years these are players who came through the SS youth programs in whole or at least in part:

A. H Sadeghi, Talebloo, Ghorbani, Jabbari, Khosroo Haydari, Shays Rezzai, Ando, Mojtaba Ensafi, Behsahde Yavarzadeh and many others that right now I don't remember.

Problem with SS is they don't have money and poor management, so all of the youth programs are at the edge of bankrupcy. Currently Rowshan is running that program and is at odds with Fattollahzadeh. Before that, Reza Ahadi ran that program, for a while Majid Namjoo Motlagh was running it and even Samad Marfavi is a the result of the SS youth program coaching program (he coached throughout the teens, youth, adult in SS).

[Paradigm]

bahram jan, I dont think PP is very cohesive either ... at least not MENTALLY.
pp also has some useless and destructive elements that deserve to be kicked out like sheyss, mamani, even niki.

I'm afraid as long as these two clubs stay on their present course ( relying on stars produced by other clubs ), this kind of fluctuating fortunes will continue. as long as "names" and "party-baazi" rule in these two, they will remain inconsistent even in their victories, and will never reach their potential.
(they are exactly opposite of a club like sepahan. who has done away with the desperate need for "known stars" and has a full fledged youth system. and that has resulted in their CONSISTENCY. year after year, the ONLY team that remains a threat to the title is sepahan, while every other team appears and disappears from one year to the next )

and that is mainly due to their management.

in ss, I was intrigued by what karimi did a few months back ( making players run laps after the loss ). I did think he may have bigger plans for ss. maybe he is deliberately trying to alienate the "names" in ss so they'd either leave or play so bad that makes firing them justifiable.
maybe karimi has the major overhaul in mind.
I dont know. but that will not happen unless ss management agrees to such drastic measures and changes.

will they?

Speaking of Niki, CNN (as is broadcast here in USA) showed his bicycle kick versus Kuwait some weeks ago in the Sport news. The English broadcaster said "Here's some fancy footwork from Alireza Nikbakht Vahedi of Iran".

[Doctor DOOM]

you know, I'm tired of hearing SS and PP dont have money.
they get bundle after bundle of aid from so many parties. amounts that maybe only sepahan or maybe another team can equal or top.
the problem is not GETTING MONEY, ali jan. they do get a lot.
the problem is their expenditure is too high .... w reference to their numerous star signings that come with a cost.
ss and pp fans always repeat what ss and pp management claims. but that management doesnt add that they pay TOO MUCH for their players and staff and ... that leaves them hungry for more.
( isnt pp still dealing with unpaid services of various players, coaches, assistants, ... ? )

you want a team with no money?
check teams like malavan.
then you wouldnt even "THINK" about saying ss or pp "dont have money".
check ss-A. despite it being a private club, a private owner can spend only so much and whatever he does is NOWHERE NEAR the aid both ss & pp enjoy getting from the gov't .
then we have the irib and TV rights that favor only the two and no1 else.
then .... .

na, ali jan. it is NOT abut money.
it is about the attitude and wrong approach by the management.
--------

as for the youth program:
bro, just rattling off name after name doesnt mean anything.
coz first , half of those names do NOT come into their seniors team and end up elsewhere. which means SS doesnt do the right thing by picking their own products ... as few as they are.
secondly, you bring up the years of yore.
I am talking about the past decade, which is impacting today's ss and pp.


I think we all can agree that sepahan is richer than either ss or pp.
but look at their NEW PLAYER signings. it is NOWHERE near ss or pp in terms of money spent on transfer market.
ONLY this season, ss and PP literraly bought the whole TM ( all players who have been to TM call ups ) and divided it between themselves.

borhani, nosrati, mani'ee, aghaei, pooladi, montazeri, khalili, bayatinya, ravankhah, heidari, majidi, yusefi, ... add this to the regulars jabbari, niki, sadeghi, Nouri, talebloo, badamaki, ..... etc. YOU CAN EASILY MAKE A TM OUT OF THIS LOT !
( I dont care if some of these ended up as lemons. it is the philosophy of "buying stars" and spending that much extra cash on them that I point at )

however, you see hajsafi, paapi, jafari, mohamadi, .... in sepahan in contrast. they are feeding off their youth system. and the players they "buy" are nowhere near the fame or cost of pp or ss players. the only one that may come close is kazemi.

my friend, ss and pp's problem is NOT MONEY. it is flawed attitude and outlook at how a football club is run by their management. and as long as this is what they insist on, well, you guys better come to terms with fluctuating fortunes.
one year u r the title contenders, the immediate next, you are struggling in mid-table !

[maij]

my friend, ss and pp's problem is NOT MONEY. it is flawed attitude and outlook at how a football club is run by their management. and as long as this is what they insist on, well, you guys better come to terms with fluctuating fortunes.
one year u r the title contenders, the immediate next, you are struggling in mid-table !

Very well said , Doc.


Football is defiantly a big business , in fact it is right now. But in order to make it , money is not always the only criteria. Success brings money and in order to succeed there is a lot of ground works. It is a vicious circle.

I believe that attitude and management is lacking in Iran's football. It is such a dynamic world , yet our brothers are sticking with strategies and ideologies that does not bring up their potentials.

Mentalities of mistrust of their own people is one such example.

Do you know that Team Melli and , I expect any club team as well , must have security people accompanying them in every trip abroad ! What they call "Sazman Herasat"! Even in this day and age!

With such kind of Stalinist Big brother watching you mentality , I find it difficult for one to give his 100% and have complete faith in the system.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ very true.
Success has many ingredients and it's not all about money. hence not having money does not mean you cant be successful relatively.

if money was the be all & end all of success, then teams like traktorsazi, pegah, homa, mashinsazi, ... would fare far better than the likes of malavan, fajr, ... .
money IS important. no doubt. but HOW YOU USE that money is even more important.

and yes, majid jan, I am aware of the ridiculous set of ppl who accompany our teams abroad , overseeing their "cultural interactions and behavior" !!!! ridiculous !
ironically, most of these "extras" are the ones who do the worst in terms of corruption, misbehavior and bringing shame to the camp ! with a lot of dealings with regards to money, goods, kits, ... that end up in their pockets somehow !

[kaz]

Do you know that Team Melli and , I expect any club team as well , must have security people accompanying them in every trip abroad ! What they call "Sazman Herasat"! Even in this day and age!

With such kind of Stalinist Big brother watching you mentality , I find it difficult for one to give his 100% and have complete faith in the system.

Yes, this is true, my uncle was with the team at the hotel for almost all of the tournament and was also privy to some meetings and training sessions.

This was one of the main problems in AC 07. The officers did not give the players any freedom or any breathing space. They were confined to the hotel and were not allowed out of the lobby.

When GN organised a van to let the players explore the city, the officers stopped the bus when it was about to leave, ordered everybody out and got them back into the hotel. Many players like Karimi and Hashemian were considering leaving TM because of this.

[Ali Chicago]

you know, I'm tired of hearing SS and PP dont have money.
they get bundle after bundle of aid from so many parties. amounts that maybe only sepahan or maybe another team can equal or top.
the problem is not GETTING MONEY, ali jan. they do get a lot.
the problem is their expenditure is too high .... w reference to their numerous star signings that come with a cost.
ss and pp fans always repeat what ss and pp management claims. but that management doesnt add that they pay TOO MUCH for their players and staff and ... that leaves them hungry for more.
( isnt pp still dealing with unpaid services of various players, coaches, assistants, ... ? )

you want a team with no money?
check teams like malavan.
then you wouldnt even "THINK" about saying ss or pp "dont have money".
check ss-A. despite it being a private club, a private owner can spend only so much and whatever he does is NOWHERE NEAR the aid both ss & pp enjoy getting from the gov't .
then we have the irib and TV rights that favor only the two and no1 else.
then .... .

na, ali jan. it is NOT abut money.
it is about the attitude and wrong approach by the management.
--------

as for the youth program:
bro, just rattling off name after name doesnt mean anything.
coz first , half of those names do NOT come into their seniors team and end up elsewhere. which means SS doesnt do the right thing by picking their own products ... as few as they are.
secondly, you bring up the years of yore.
I am talking about the past decade, which is impacting today's ss and pp.


I think we all can agree that sepahan is richer than either ss or pp.
but look at their NEW PLAYER signings. it is NOWHERE near ss or pp in terms of money spent on transfer market.
ONLY this season, ss and PP literraly bought the whole TM ( all players who have been to TM call ups ) and divided it between themselves.

borhani, nosrati, mani'ee, aghaei, pooladi, montazeri, khalili, bayatinya, ravankhah, heidari, majidi, yusefi, ... add this to the regulars jabbari, niki, sadeghi, Nouri, talebloo, badamaki, ..... etc. YOU CAN EASILY MAKE A TM OUT OF THIS LOT !
( I dont care if some of these ended up as lemons. it is the philosophy of "buying stars" and spending that much extra cash on them that I point at )

however, you see hajsafi, paapi, jafari, mohamadi, .... in sepahan in contrast. they are feeding off their youth system. and the players they "buy" are nowhere near the fame or cost of pp or ss players. the only one that may come close is kazemi.

my friend, ss and pp's problem is NOT MONEY. it is flawed attitude and outlook at how a football club is run by their management. and as long as this is what they insist on, well, you guys better come to terms with fluctuating fortunes.
one year u r the title contenders, the immediate next, you are struggling in mid-table !

I was expecting much more from someone with your potential. It is not about MONEY!!!!! If you don't have money, no good manager will come and work for you. If you don't have money, you can only look no further than front of your nose!!!!!!

Why you give example of Malavan???!!!! Why don't you talk about Saba Battery, Saipa, Sepahan?? And even up to two years ago Zob Ahan and Foolad when they had money!!!!! Foolaed budget was cut by more than 60% if not more and you saw where foolad is. Zob Ahan the same. Zob ahan was in foruth or fifth pro league among the top three teams. These are three teams (Saba, Saipa, Sepahan) are fully supported. They have budget. Saipa and Saba have their own stadium. Players know when they get paid. Last year, Marfavi paid for the dinner of player in Isfahan, because the hotel didn't accept the check from SS club.

Agha Payman it is easy to sit on the internet and say managment this managment that!!!! but if there is no money in the first place, no good manager will come and work for your organization. If Man U doesn't pay Fergusen good, will he stay with Man U?


As for the SS program in youth it is not just a bunch of names. If you played in Iran you knew that SS always, always had a very established youth programs (during the former regime) and even today compare to the other teams has a good youth program. SS and PP are the two teams that have to compete for championship, so they need to buy superstars. You are mixing the issue of youth players not coming to the first team and muddying the water. It is not I say this you say that, Go and look at the youth league championship in the past 10-15 years. SS team always has been among the top three teams, so were Zob Ahan and Sepahan btw.


Money in our football is a critical issue. 2, 3 years ago, SS and PP brought a consulting team from Turkey to teach them how to improve the club and do a long term plan for the respective clubs. Since Turkish football at one point was like us, but now they have much mjuch better football league and teams are in much better shape finnancially.

Turk consultants after some investigations realized there is no TV right and no merchendising and private sector doesn't do sponserships and no long term investments (loans and grants or land grants) from the governement. Don't get me wrong, Sazeman Tarbeeyat badni pays for the expenses but nothing for the investments. Those who know a little about business realize what is the difference here. The Turkish consultants told SS and PP management until these issues doesn't get addressed in Iran forget about professinal football in Iran. Even today, the government artifically keeps our so called pro league alive, by paying for SS and PP and then thourgh industry supporting Saba, Sepahan, Saipa and many other teams.

Ss and PP are two teams that their performance correlates with the performance of the TM. Whenever these two teams did well, so did our team melli (see WC 78 (both SS and PP players) team or even WC 98 team lot of PP players). No matter how much you hate these teams and even if you say they have it good or not and unfair or whatever (which I still disagree), but you can't deny the impact of these two team on Iran's natioanl football.

AND ONCE AGAIN, NO MONEY MEANS NO GOOD MANAGER WILL COME AND CAN PLAN FOR THE LONG TERM. As they say in FARSI, shekam ghoroosneh deen va eemoon nadareh. When the club needs to worry how to pay for the past debt or else it looses 6 points by FIFA. You expect long term planning????

And for the records, Sepahan beat SS to Aghai and PP to Emad reza since they had more money. Rumor has it Emad Reza got paid 400K US (indirectly). Even PP under Ansarifard didn't hav ethat kind of money. Why did Hossein Kazemi went to Sepahan and didn't stay in SS? Where the money comes to hire Boncic and Zherandeero? You say Sepahan doesn't have money? After the revolution many religious Isfahanies (specillay the Anjomane Hojjateeyeh Isfahanis) got really really influential posts. After the revolution at one point all of the Ostandars except two were from Isfahan. Don't tell me Sepahan doesn't have money. On the surface their budget maynot be that much. But they are loaded. Having said that, Saket's and Sepahan's management board done well too. But if there was no money, Saket or even Sir Alex Fergusen wouldn't have been able to do anything positive.

Another fact for Sepahan money? See the threard in the main forum about Sepahan trying to sign Mojtaba Jabbair supposedly for 750 Million. It is a record in Iran for sure. That 750K US. I rest my case. BTW Jaabbari was one of the products of SS youth program. Did you think about where Bayat came from ? Or even Ghanbari in this year's SS team??? As I said in my original post, Arsenal and Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea Bacelona have great youth programs as well, But they buy players a lot, sicne these are the teams that can't take a year to build a youth team (what Begovitch did with foolad and former Zob Ahan coach jorjevitch was trying to do earlier this year). So SS and PP need to buy players. Buing players isn't the proof for the lack of youth programs. SS and PP needs superstars players not just good player. See current sing ups of this year, Pooladi, Ravankhah, namdari, Bayati nia Montazeri, Kooshki, they were all very good players in their own team, but when they came to SS, they didn't get it done. Why? Cause if u play for SS and PP expectations is 100 times higher.

[Doctor DOOM]

Ali jan, I thought I did convey my meaning.
by saying it's not about money, I dont mean money does NOT matter at all.

I said ss and pp's problems are not becoz they dont have money. it is becoz they are not RUN & MANAGED correctly.
so even if they get lots of funding ( which btw, they do when we compare them to teams I mentioned ; malavan , fajr, ... ), they will still lack consistency and you'd see them riding the elevator up and down the table each passing year.

and speaking of sepahan, I must reaffirm your claims of sepahan.
but what you didnt include was that sepahan, does have a strong youth system and also, their management is far more efficient than either of ss and pp.
their fundamentals are far more sound and slid, hence it prepares the bed & ground for superior extraction of potential.
at ss and pp, the fundamentals are deficient.
to top that, their management isnt all that professional either.
and the icing, their youth system is nowhere near sepahan's.
so when you add all the above, you'd see why they ride the elevator.

money helps. yes, I agree.
But what has more of an impact is the structure of the club and its management which ss and pp fall short in.


but you guys ( ss and pp fans ) speak as if these two teams are run on "noone khoshk & salavat" !!
when your regular players ( not even the top stars ) buy mercs and BMW's ( consier the price of these cars ), you know they are being paid well. when you hear the contracts and fees of some of these players, you know money is coming in to enable the club to pay such exorbitant fees.
bottomline is MONEY is coming in for these two. and far more than many other clubs.
yet, the management has made it a habit of blaming their failures on supposed lack of funds, which frankly, doesnt stick.


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

I do know their impact and I did not call for their extinction.
I only objected on the excuse of "no money" that really isnt justified.

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

btw, the ss you speak about in the COUNTRY's youth championship is NOT the tehran chapter of ss. it is the ahvaz one. ( ay naaghola. wanted to sneak it in, eh ? )
in fact the most accomplished ones are sepahan, ss-ahvaz and zob.

[Ali Chicago]

Ali jan, I thought I did convey my meaning.
by saying it's not about money, I dont mean money does NOT matter at all.

I said ss and pp's problems are not becoz they dont have money. it is becoz they are not RUN & MANAGED correctly.
so even if they get lots of funding ( which btw, they do when we compare them to teams I mentioned ; malavan , fajr, ... ), they will still lack consistency and you'd see them riding the elevator up and down the table each passing year.

Again your argument is not relavant. Fajir and Malavan aren't comparable with SS and PP. Expectations is different, it is comparsion of apples and oranges. Plus Malavan and Fajr get a lot of youth players who are going for military services as well. As does Saba and Pass and even Abo muslim when the last two teams where under the control of Neeroye Entezami.

Once again, if you don't have money, you won't get good mangements. Management in SS and PP is worried to pay the debt so FIFA doen't deduct 6 points from them. In this kind of atmosphere u expect long term planning.

Read about Hassan Rowshan quarrles with Fattollahzadeh about the budget of youth programs for SS. Then you realize how improtant is money.

One more time expense and investment are two different things. Sazeman trabeeyat badani pays for expenses and is afraid of selling SS and PP to someone else (since whoever take over these two teams, potentially can become very influential).