Improved league !

[zzgloo]

Last year, we were talking about, the inconsistancies of Saipa, and the up and down of many teams...with so many players who had just left the league ,to go to Europe and Gulf countries..as well as weakened Perspolise, and weak esteghlal under Marfavi...and only Sepahan and esteghlal ahvaz showed some promises.....
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This year how ever, it seems the teams selected better coaches,and do not appear to miss any legioner at all.and the top teams of last year are not even among the top 10 this year,( SS & Saipa )

Karimi ::in SS has not done anything, but may be he will next year...
Yavari:: has done a great job in Bargh.
GN ::did miracles with talent-less Mess.
Ghotbi::, was a breath of a fresh air in the league,and has made every body to say : Denizi..who ?
Reviera: in short time, did not allow sepahan to lose any step, and showed Iraqi wins were no accident.
Golmohamadi :: he has got my vote for the coach of the year.
Malavan,SS-ahvaz,paykan,abumoslem,zobahan,pas,Rah-ahan,also have done respecteble jobs,and were no push overs..

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The game between PP vs Saba, specialy the first half, was absolutly impresive !, as what it should have been !..among two of the top three team in the league.....the game had European smell, and fast paced,unlike what we saw from Saipa at its best last year.

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It appears, the league,after loseing so many Euro-legioners,and Arab-legioners, not only has not lost its standard, but also has improved as well.
TM may be in shambles, but the league is not !

[Doctor DOOM]

good points bahram jan.


just one thing: we must distinguish between the terms : "talentless" and "unknown".
Mes certainly does have the talent. but they are UNKNOWN.
if they didnt have talent, they'd not have done so well in some of their games. beating the defending champs and causing all sorts of trouble for the bigger teams.
In Iran, sadly, "fame & name" matters more than quality ! so we dont hear much about many deserving players in smaller teams.
irib's monopoly also isnt helping the matters either.

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Denizli.
and his team did play pretty good football.
btw, lets also consider ghotbi's mid season games also .... and THEN ask who is denizli.
pp went on for 10-12 games showing absolute crap on the pitch ( although some of those games were won, but quality was sub-par ).
and I still insist take out khalili ( a forward that actually scores goals - which denizli didnt have ) out of this season of PP and you'd see them somewhere near ss

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yahya, actually cannot be assessed with so few games under his belt.
how many games has he been the coach 5 ? 7 ?
the team was already functioning well when he moved in.
a team's final 5-7 games are NO WAY to assess a coach's ability.
I reserve my opinion on his coaching prowess till next season.

as for the coach of the year nominee, if you've watched FAJR, you'd know shagholam deserves to be one of the nominees.
his team ( the couple of times we see them, no thanks to irib, plays effective but SIMPLE football. and that, is admirable given the kind of unknown players he has ).

the other nominee is Yavari, who has truned bargh's fortunes around very very well.

ghotbi could be one of the nominees as well. for putting up with constant crap from estili, marzbaan, sheyss, niki, mamani, .... .
btw, I hope they get rid of sheyss & mamani forever. coz this team WITHOUT those ppl performs far far better than with them.


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I agree on pp-saba game.
surprisingly, it was quite a fast paced game very rarely seen in IPL.
kudos to both teams.
had saba ( especially fazli's two golden opportunities ) utilized their 3 extremely dangerous chances in the first half, we'd have seen an even more competitive game in the second.
good game.

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quality hasnt dropped becoz Iran is blessed ( touch wood ) with fountains and springs of talent all over its regions. so if a few talented players move out, immediately new talent rears its head to replace them.

this season, players like asghari, bigdeli, zarehi, ravankhah, taheri, hajsafi, amraei, ... even khalili have been a kong the new batch of stars.


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at the same time, I would be very worried about another set of stars and famous players who fizzled out without realizing a quarter of their potential: borhani, oladi, roudbarian, sheyss, pooladi, ....
they've been such a major let down.
and I fear it has much to do with the process of development & maturation of a player in our country which is faulty !

[zzgloo]

just one thing: we must distinguish between the terms : "talentless" and "unknown".

My mistake, indeed,there is a huge difference between talentless and unknown talents.......

how ever, I have a feeling GN would have done the same thing with any other bottom of the league teams ....

Golmohamadi, was coaching the team far before he was declared as the head coach...he is a very low key guy, and his team,in my opinion , ( Just my opinion ), is better than Sepahan...and again with " Unkown talents ", ( I corrected myself this time )

although,I agree some players such as Borhani, got waisted,because of bad system....as the whole SS team was out of sink....yet, some of its players are very promising...such as Ravankhah ,as you mentioned.

But, all in all, this currant league, is based less on " Fame & Name " than any other period I remember..... which that is a major accumplishment.

[mkbf2]

very good points. i agree the league is slowly getting better but the federation must consolidate their gains and try to build on it by insisting on better pitches and better fan behavior