Observations about UEFA 2008

[Ali Chicago]

Please Watch Russia Sweden

I hmbely request if you watch this game and really pay attention. Watch how Russia plays, you will see everything here:
Offensive Transition
Defensive Transition
Movement without the ball, watch both Russia's goals
Excellence in coaching, how Guss Hidding has transformed Russian team to come back from a trashing 4-1 defeat by Spain and trash Sweden 2-0. Beleive me, without exageration this game could have been 6-1 or 5-1 for Russia.
Russian made GODS of football happy. Johan Cryff focus on beautiful game was what Russian team displayed last night.
I promised to write about UEFA and specailly Greeks, Austria, Turks, Swiss since these teams are more at our level of football and their approach to the tournament. I wasnt' able to do that, in part due to huge work volume and then 4 hours a day watching the UEFA games. But I will get to it.

I can write volumes about Russia Sweden game, but got to get back to work ( I have a deadline for this weekend), but I had to post this, until the Russia Sweden game is freash in everyone's mind. Like I said there is so much one can write about magnificant Russian team. But I focus on one element GUSS Hidding's role as the head coach.

In many of the threads in F+, I see a lot of comments like this "Impact of head coach isn't a lot" and then they bring examples of IFF and Iran's shortcomings in general to explain poor results in out football. I tended to generally think like that as well.
After watching the game last night, revised my opinion. Role of a head coach is amazing and is much more than I realized.

Hidding was able to bring a decimated Russian team from a 4-1 loss to Spain and make them play like that. These are the same players, same team. See the improvements with your own eyes.

During the game, the ESPN comentator was saying, Russian fans say " In Guss, we beleive" (as a back ground, the original phrase is from the quote on the back of the dollar bills in the United State " In God, We Trust").

To you guys, it may seems insignificat that fans say "In Guss, we trust", but to me, it shows what kind of environment Guss Hidding has created around the Russian Natioanl team. The enviroment that brews confidence and respect for the head coach. In this enviroment, there is no room of self centerisem, lazyness, .... etc. etc.

Russia will play Holland in Quarter final. Holland in this tournament trashed Italy and France, so they aren't a push over to say the least. Wait for the prettiest game in the UEFA when Russia, Holland play.

I am not that naive to think based on one performance Russian will be this and that. Maybe all of this will be a fluke and just one excellent performance from Russia. Somehow I think there is more than that. I wouldn't even be surprised to see if Russia with a bit of luck will win the whole thing.


Still there is so much to write about the Greek and Turkish approach to the UEFA,which I think is very applicable to Iran's natioal team. To me the way, we played in WC 2006 was the way Greeks played in this tournament (not to mention the weak goalie that Greeks brought by themselves).

[zzgloo]

In many of the threads in F+ I see a lot of comments like this "Impact of head coach isn't a lot and they bring examples of IFF and Iran's shortcomings in general". I tend to generally think like that as well.
After watching the game last night, I have revised my opinion. Role of a head coach is amazing and is much much more than I realized.

Excelent point,ali jaan.......although,I have never been among those who take the impact of the coach lightly.
You take Gus hidding to afganistan, he will give you results.
For those who think ,Iranian system is so " FU ", he can never function....I must say, this guys are proffesional, and have a name to uphold.....you give him enough money, he will even go to " namazeh Jomeh with rafsanjani ". .

[Doctor DOOM]

I thoroughly enjoyed how russia ran amok in that game !
you could be forgiven if you thought you were watching holland instead of russia !

very impressive.
I guess YOUTH ENERGY and MOTIVATION does that to you.

I doubt any of those russians are as skillful as ibrahimovic or larsen or lijunberg or ... , but they compensated all those with HARD RUNNING , SPEED & SIMPLE FOOTBALL.

this is a testament to the belief that SIMPLICITY is the key
we didnt see any trickery or dribbling or players trying to do the extraordinaire or flashy stuff ( are you reading, Iranian fans & players & coaches ? ).

they just ran hard, fast and passed when they shd.
that's all.
and that is how you bring down a team with twice the reputation and twice the experience as urs.

Viva Guus, the boss.
My god, what a record this man has !

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

their game against holland would be the game of tournament, if not the decade, if they manage to play with the same level of energy and pace.
screw portugal-germany , or even the mouth watering ( name-wise ) spain-italy, I am NOT GOING TO MISS russia-holland game if you give me a million bucks.

( make it one and half and I'll think about it. maybe tivo it or something )

[Ali Chicago]

Once again, I really don't care about Russia. This post is the foundation in order for you guy follow how Hiddink put the pieces together to make the mean machine that he unleashed against Sweden.

[zzgloo]

.
The bauty of Hiddink's job, is that :

1- He gets results fast, even on his first year.
2-Does not neccessarly need top talents.
3-Is used to different cultures .
4-Has learned, not just what wins in Europe, but also, what is it that other places do not do.


I remember the legendary coach of 49ers, Bill walsh, once said, that majority of coaches lose thier jobs, for some small details.....
It is matter of where to put the emphasise.

[Mr.Good]

Germany vs. Portugal

That game showed what is modern football is all about.
Great tactical game fro the German side. They basically out musseled the Portuguese.
Portugal players with all the flair and technique they had could not easily penetrate the huge, organized German defense.
The German basically run over them, even though the Portuguese had 8 days of rest and the German had only three days.

[Ali Chicago]

That game showed what is modern football is all about.
Great tactical game fro the German side. They basically out musseled the Portuguese.
Portugal players with all the flair and technique they had could not easily penetrate the huge, organized German defense.
The German basically run over them, even though the Portuguese had 8 days of rest and the German had only three days.

To me portugeese lost due to their really poor defense in the air to be honest and poor marking by the Ferrera on both goals by Klose and Ballack.

Overall I think Portugeese weren't a good team. They basically relied on their stars Ronaldo and in the second half of the crucial he was nowhere to be seen.

As you said, organized defense by Germany played a significant part I am sure. Overall not a very entertaining game. I hope when watch Turkey Crotaia game later today, I see a better game.


Please no one lists the results until a couple of days later, so those of us who tape the games can enjoy it without knowing the result.

[zzgloo]

That game showed what is modern football is all about.
Great tactical game fro the German side. They basically out musseled the Portuguese.
Portugal players with all the flair and technique they had could not easily penetrate the huge, organized German defense.
The German basically run over them, even though the Portuguese had 8 days of rest and the German had only three days.

I specialy paid attention to the german's first goal....
Due to a counterattck,thier left wing was all alone, and this guy, Scwisetiger or what ever his name was , was covered, but he ran so fast,to the first post, to recieve the ball, and make a goal....
It was as he exactly knew where the ball is going to be crossed to...and had he not known that, he was perfectly covered.
This is, very similar to the American football, NFL, with exact timeing rout running, the passer gives signal, and the reciever, knows where the ball is going to go..but defenses do not.

[Doctor DOOM]

Heart break for croatia, who defeated germany, but failed to convert sh*tload of chances they got against turkey!

My god, the saying that goes like "if you dont score your chances, you will get scored on", held true !

imagine !
they couldnt even hold onto the ball for 60 seconds !
all klasnic had to do was to stand in front of rustu ( GK ) and prevent him from kicking it quickly !
that's all !

we shd learn from this.
we miss enough opportunities, chances are we'll concede goals in the other end.
we better make sure we convert them as much as possible.

[Haf3z]

Before we even consider learning about this, we should qualify ourselves for these kinds of games. We made it to the quarter finals in last year's asian cup, but we failed to advance from our group in Germany in 2006.

What Turkey has is success. Success brings success. It began eight years ago in the UEFA cup final against Arsenal and it continued two years later in South Korea/Japan where they won bronze medal. They had some trouble in the qualification campaign for EURO 2004 but their league has improved significantly the last decade. There is a lot of knowledge and money there and several Turkish clubs are for instance after high profile players from the biggest teams in England, Spain and Italy. Compare this with IPL...

What can we learn from our neighboring country? Fundamentally, it is in my opinion all about organization and structure. How is their federation working? How are the clubs working? How is the government working in these matters?

We are no different from the Turks, and we have the capacity to play on the same level and scene as them. The only problem is that we don't have a decent league and this is something fundamental for most successful football nations.

[perspolees]

with all due respect there's nothing to compare!
the proportion in diff between our iri football and euro football is perhaps similar and even equal to the diff between the iri social, poitical, judicial, medical, health, wealth, etc.... of iri and say sweden or France....

how can one compare kilograms and centimeters!!

[perspolees]

on a different note I think it is a poorly organized tournament by fixture standards in europe.
I mean chosing the quarters and semis on one side of the table will make the possibility of the teams from same group playing a semifinal a great possibility. Would have loved to see A playing C and B playing D so that we would have seen more possibilities and games. Turkey beat croatia but think of seeing another croatia Germany clash about 6 days after their first one!!

[The-Red]

I am not sure if it has been discussed already, but I simply do not understand why uefa goes with the head-to-head tie breakers...!!! it doesn't make sense to...I think it takes away attacking footba,,,in most cases, it takes away any motivation to win your last group match and simply must be changed and just like fifa competitions goal average first, then head to heads must be considered, in my opinion.

[Haf3z]

on a different note I think it is a poorly organized tournament by fixture standards in europe.
I mean chosing the quarters and semis on one side of the table will make the possibility of the teams from same group playing a semifinal a great possibility. Would have loved to see A playing C and B playing D so that we would have seen more possibilities and games. Turkey beat croatia but think of seeing another croatia Germany clash about 6 days after their first one!!

The setup is made this way so that each time gets an equal amount of resting days in between the games.

[perspolees]

The setup is made this way so that each time gets an equal amount of resting days in between the games.

good point but why compromise the whole tournament when you can for instance give a day break from groups to knock out stage...all rest and alla re happy and teams get to compete with different brackets and semis and final would make much more sense