Iran - Saudi Post match comments

[Martin-Reza]

I never answered any of your criticisms toward TM up to now, because I wanted to wait for a tough match, now that we have played KSA, criticisms can be considered more valid.

Anyway, I donno how you watched our right midfield, but from what you wrote there is a paradox here, you say our right side didnt do anything, while you say Gholamnejad had a great game, you seem to ignore his penetrating runs into Saudi's def in second half, or his one-twos with Rezaei or Shojaei?

I mean how should a right side or right midfield performance be evaluated? just the performance of an individual in a strict spot which is seen on the paper?
In today's football its not like we put in a player in the right midfield spot and ask him to do right midfield stuff, spots are merely just names as any player on the right side or central midfield can start attacks and moves i.e Gholamnejad cooperations with Rezaei and Shojaei or even when Vahid came a little bit back on right pressure the Saudi's defense or get passes from Shojaei or Rezaei.

All in all rejecting all the work our right side did yesterday because you didnt like Shojaei is absurd, please try to cover up your bias in some more logical reasons because as we all know this is F+

How can you dare saying that? If we had Kazemian, Mobali, and Asadi, all playing RM at the same time of course, we would have won 27-0. And undoubtedly Zare did nothing right and Sadeghi's presence on the bench completely messed up our game.

Did I forget anything? Maybe Karimi would have scored a couple of hattricks as well. Unfortunately Azizi doesn't play anymore.

Too bad Daei is so damn stupid, but luckily we got a draw from underdogs Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.

[yashar_fasihnia]

interesting points guys and since most of us here have mentioned the points to be mentioned, i felt i could say something that hasnt been addressed much.

i just wanted to make a comment about nekounam and why he "appeared" to not have a very good game.

today, iran played 4-4-2, with 1 DM, javad nekounam. this was wat many of us, including myeslf, wanted from the beginning and there was even a long thread discussing it and comparing it with the 4-2-3-1 formation and using 2 DMs.

in my opinion, today, javad nekounam did his best and was on good form.
the problem was he had a lot of duties and responsiblities on his shoulder SIMPLY BECAUSE, the 2 midfielders on the 2 sides, zandi and teymourian were pathetic.

offensively, the 2 contributed nothing. so nekounam had to cover up for them as well in the offensive side of the game.

in defense also, teymourian did some contribution but zandi did none. again, "feshar miyumad ru javad nekounam".

also, these 2 players really played far away from nekounam and so, there were huge gaps in the middle which the saudis could exploit and nekounam alone couldnt cover it by himself.

i thank god nekounam is on top form again and was able to do his best on the field. IF he wasnt on top form like some months back and was just returning from and injury and had to play as single DM today, both him and TM would have been totally squashed by the saudis. this was precisely wat i argued for months back when we were playing UAE, syria and kuwait.

in my opinion, if daei wanted to play nekounam and zandi, he should have played 4-2-3-1. in this way, zandi would be playing upfront and have less defensive duties to do and concentrate only on offense while teymourian playing 2nd DM would have to focus only on destruction and defensive duties which he is good at. ball distribution would be more nekounams job and nekounam would have a bit more freedom to move infront and take long range shots.
not to mention, 4-2-3-1 is prehaps the best formation to cover all areas of the field and avoid leaving any gaps in the middle of the field for the opponent to exploit. that being said however, our lines and our players themselves, had huge gaps between them and hence, the saudis could pass us from line to line and from player to player through quick passing combinations. if our players and lines played closer to each other and moved up and down, left and right, more as a unit, rather than an individual player, then the saudis would have less space to move and pass around. thats exactly how most counter attacking teams, like north korea and jordan play. a compact, coordinated "unit" playing, rather than 11 individuals.

in this match, because nekounam was the only DM and there wasnt much defensive contribution from the other midfielders, he really didnt have the freedom to go infront during attack for headers or take shots from the rebounds or the crosses the saudis cleared.

or, we could play 4-4-2 today but either bench zandi and teymourian or somehow make them overcome their deficiencies. make zandi participate in defense as well (and make him physically fitter if thats his problem) and somehow increase teymourians concentration during passing.

these 2 players slowed down our offensive moves because of wrong passes and lack of movement and creating space.
but when madanchi and jabbari came in, our team became faster. madanchi is a speedy winger who runs a lot and runs fast thereby increasing the speed of the game, creating more space and at the same time, relieving his team mates off some pressure during offense and defense.
jabbari on the other hand, isnt as fast as madanchi, but is a quick thinker. in other words. he passes the ball around quickly, and passess well with good accuracy and to correct places. his passes are worthy because he hardly turns back in an offensive transition to make a back pass. he doesnt run out of ideas quickly. some players, like teymourian are like that. as soon as they dont see a real 100%chance for a pass, they dont know wat to do and pass back to nekounam or to the defender. this kills our offensive game and the speed of the team.

in my opinion, if we wanna play 4-4-2 with 1 DM, we need to bench teymourian. or if we really want him to play, try him as RB or LB. he can destruct well and has a lot of stamina, thereby making a lot of runs up and down the field. his crosses are also not bad and he can destruct the opponents game quite well.

about zandi, i like him, and i think he is a valuable asset, but for some reaosn, his contribution isnt enough, not atleast for a 90 minute player. we either need to bring him on as a substitute so he can bust his @$$ off in the remaining minutes he plays, or just assign him a highly offensive role with minimal defensive responsibilities, so he doesnt cost us much if he doesnt perform his defensive duties well.

overall, i think the saudis deserved to win, but hey, we didnt give up and we fought back and earned a point. good for us and th boys. im happy daei made good substitutions, except for khatibi. i think he could let rezai play.

and im glad he didnt play sadeghi at all today, so criticisms about him playing sadeghi (whether, correct or incorrect) would be reduced. and the substitions he made, he removed ando and played jabbari instead of sadeghi which means daei is not blindly playing sadeghi every chance he gets.

[yashar_fasihnia]

oh btw...our team still needs a lot of practice together and more coordination.
its clear we are not yet "jaoftadeh" and we need more gelling up to do. that comes through time and hopefully more friendly games.

[BehzadB]

What do Branko, GN and Daie have in common??

If you said Khatibi, you are right..

How does Khatibi get to play for TM while keeps missing shots on goal, coach after coach... he must be lobbying with god..

[zzgloo]

Was that , the result of " The Daei's Revolution '' ??

was that,what we did not understand ?

We have ,given the best talents in asia, to a man who simply does not understand coaching !........he is good at many things.....but,just not coaching !

[Masoud_A]

Was that , the result of " The Daei's Revolution '' ??

was that,what we did not understand ?

We have ,given the best talents in asia, to a man who simply does not understand coaching !........he is good at many things.....but,just not coaching !

Wow, a statement with so much reasoning and facts to support it, reminds me of the kindergarten forums posts

[maij]

Sorry I did not go through all the posts , due to their length. I don't know if anyone mentioned it or not but the one very positive aspect of Team Melli performance was the physical strength and endurance.

The more the game went on the weaker the Saudi's were but the biyz were playing like the game was only a few minutes old.

The Saudi TV panel were scratching their head while mentioning this. Why the Saudi players were breathing and gasping for air , while the Iranians , despite the common belief , would fall apart in this weather?

Be it the tough physical training that TM players have gone through or the conditioning in Kish Island, that was a plus point for Team Melli and I believe that is Iran scored the equalizer because of this.

As for the players.

The goal conceded was due to poor coverage and slow reaction by Zare initially , but the worst offender was Hosseini. He commited a basic and classical error. While he was marking Al Harthy closely before the cross , the Saudi striker very cleverly distanced himself while Hosseini was watching the ball on the cross allowing Al Harthy ample time and space to shoot.

[maij]

Was that , the result of " The Daei's Revolution '' ??

was that,what we did not understand ?

We have ,given the best talents in asia, to a man who simply does not understand coaching !........he is good at many things.....but,just not coaching !

Bahram Jan...... I like to remind you that this is Football+ forum.

Such statements belong to elsewhere.

[Doctor DOOM]

1- I think we all agree on one thing at least, and that is playing ONLY third rate teams will never help our TM and players to prepare for this round’s games.
It is ok if you play SOME of the preparatory games against weaker teams, but you HAVE TO play some stronger teams to discover your weaknesses, to get pushed around, to get exposed, to be pressurized.
Throw out the old philosophy of relying on an “unbeaten streak” as that helps ONLY the coach and NOT THE TEAM.

So while playing weak teams, you may add to your wins and unbeaten record, and players may come out shining and look like stars ( rezaei for example ), but come the TRUE TEST ( we did say the ksa game was Daei’s first REAL test ), then you come up short ! then those “stars” show what truly they are capable of.
This is not to deride Rezaei, as I still think he is a very good addition to the squad. But unless we truly stress the steel-alloy, we wont get the hardened steel.


2- Secondly, as I used to say prior to WC, “names” shd not matter. What matters is what the team needs and which player is in form to deliver those duties.
Believe me if we had at least 2 specialist right midfielders/wingers, I’d have never asked for Kia with this intensity. But the fact is we don’t. we leave out players like Kazemian. And instead put players unable to perform the duties , for whatever the reason ( playing in Europe, playing in saipa, …. ) !! no wonder we got zilch from the right mid !



3- Third, while I agree that kaabi’s role is very important in our team, I also believe no team shd have its ENGINE playing so far back. The role of the engine shd be in the midfield, preferably a central position. So that responsibility rests with players like Nekunam , Ando, Shojaei, Jabbari, Zandi, sadeghi ( since we cant get rid of him !! ), …
But just a look at the top list we see many of them are incapable or unfit to take the responsibility.
Nekunam is a very good def mid and does a little distribution once in a while. But his role is more accentuated in a defensive posture than an offensive one.
Ando is totally out of form. And even in form, he isn’t a good passer or with anything above average vision.
Shojaei has the potential, but like karimi of the old days, his head is full of dribbles … far more than passing.
Sadeghi? The less said about the guy, the better.
Zandi can certainly do the job, but is not fit. He runs out of gas too early to be dependable.
That leaves Jabbari, who has the capacity and vision. And unlike shojaei, his priorities are PASSING first and then dribbling. To me, this sort of player can be the engine of the team.



4- I don’t know why Ali jan says gholamnejad was worse than zareh, of all the players !! yes, the lad did have some negatives and bad moments. But zareh had far more. And unfortunately, with zareh, that has become a routine. In each and every game his negatives are almost double his positives. I’d give gholamnejad some leeway on the strength of being a new comer, young and having shown some good games. But zareh? I think after CONSISTENTLY & WITHOUT FAIL playing poor, he doesn’t deserve to start games.

5- I absolutely and totally agree with the need to play POSSESSION FOOTBALL. Especially when we play away games. That way not only we keep the ball and away from the opponents, we also can dictate the rhythm & pace of the game according to what WE want. But for that, there ought to be tactics and plans laid out. And that is the job of our staff.

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

masoud jan, gholanejad did have a good game …. As right DEFENDER.
If you followed my post and those prior to the game you’d know it was the right midfield ( Kia’s post ) that was under scrutiny.

Gholamnejad, did better than the other defenders and he did take part in some attacks and …etc. Definitely. I did say: “he isn’t kaabi, but given his …..” .maybe you missed this part.


And saying shojaei did too much dribbling is “bias” ?
So in the game YOU saw, shojaei didn’t overdo the dribbling? Can I have THAT game’s tape too? Maybe I can watch THAT game as well.
for your kind info I DO like shojaei a lot. however, as I have always said, I value passing more than dribbling. so jabbari rates above him for me. but nobody in their right mind would say I'm biased against shojaei.

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

yashar is on the right track with nekunam’s issue.
Perhaps the poor display of his adjacent mids stretched nekunam and tired him, trying to cover for those two. That makes sense.
We see that in every game of football where a poor player forces his adjacent player to cover for him. As seen Aghili being stretched thin in trying to cover for zareh’s repeated mistakes and turnovers.

Maybe if Jabbari, Rahmati or … who are in form, are placed with nekunam, he can freely do his duties in better form.



And since yashar mentioned pace and madanchi/jabbari, let me add this too:
PACE does not necessarily mean the players RUN fast.
You can inject pace into the team by quick PASSING. In fact many top coaches prefer the BALL TO DO THE RUNNING rather than the players. that preserves the stamina of the players and tires the opponents, it also creates more momentum for the team.
Jabbari follows this philosophy, which points at his high football-IQ.
Opposite of that is those players who KILL the momentum of the team by keeping the ball too much like the old karimi, whom I used to call “tormoz dasti”.

Zandi, too, is like jabbari and you see he plays football CORRECTLY. But his problem is lack of fitness. A fit Zandi alongside Jabbari (backed by Nekunam ) would make an unbeatable midfield for us.


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

btw, a very good post Hadi jan.

[purple_haze]

......
Is Aghili good enough for TM (I don't think so). Isn't it time to give Nosrati. Shakouri, or others a chance? Will he go on searching for a few motivated, talented and in-from footballers in our league (like GR Rezaie)? How is he going to prepare the team psychologically?

I agree with most of you points, well said. I just had to repeat the quoted part. I'll explain more a bit down the page.

1-First, the engine of our team is Kaebi. I think until 3 days before the
game, it was not certain that he is suspended. If you saw slowlness on
the right that's pretty much due to his absence.

I have to strongly disagree. We have to be extremely badbakht if Kaebi is our engine. Today's Kaebi with his current form and recent performances is most definately nothing we couldn't live without as evident from Gholamnejad's performance. Right now at this moment Gholamnejad matches and surpasses Kaebi in every department but experience and over-aggression.

...

Very good observations Yashar jan, I initially didn't think about Nekunam's performance that way and was rather dissapointed in him but what you say makes very good sense.

Was that , the result of " The Daei's Revolution '' ??

was that,what we did not understand ?

We have ,given the best talents in asia, to a man who simply does not understand coaching !........he is good at many things.....but,just not coaching !

Bahram jan with all due respect that's a bit emotional. Have you or anybody else considered the fact that we may not be as talented as we think of ourselves? At least the current team isn't exactly boiling with talent IMO. We sure do have some classy players, but compared to past teams and even compared to the Saudi's yesterday, we had very few who could match them in that department that we alway self proclaim to be best at in Asia.
Daei's player selections have always been questionable and in the Saudi match his initial player selection was almost catastrophic, but credit to him for rectifying most of his own primitive errors.

All in all I don't ever remember being so outclassed and made to look like a complete set of amateurs facing any asian teams to this degree before and I hope I don't live to see it again. Thank god for the ref, for our luck and our physical condition.

I really hope Mr Daei who showed good signs, which makes up for his mistakes in this match, really takes a look at our own league and revises his player selections, at least based on the opponent we're facing. On this very same line and as Hadi said, I too have to stress once more that unfortunately our defenders, neither Hosseini or Aghili are individualy that great, diverse or intelligent(football wise). They are good at IPL kevel but nothing to rely on totally for international level.
In a modern game, we often see a pair of central defenders, where one stands for brute force and muscle power, while the other should stand for intelligence and ball control apart from being a decent defender. Or at least one of them should be considerably fast. The pair of Aghil, Hosseini only cover the muscle and force part, but lack desperately at the rest. I even warned for this before the match in another topic.

The rest of the points have already been mentioned, but I needed to stress and beg for a revision on player selections.

[The-Red]

With so many great and knowledgeable posts regarding the game, I will not get into tactical aspects of the game as almost everyone touched on nicely, but simply as a TM fan and really trying to look at this game from an objective point of view, I must say that in the past 20+ years that I have been watching Iran-KSA rivalry, this was probably the second worse Saudi team after their Asian cup 2004 team that I have seen...Just my personal opinion, many may disagree.
This is not to take any credit away from our boys/Daie, which played probably the toughest game of the qualifiers in such a hostile ground and vs. a traditional Arab rival and came out with a point, which on paper, was a favorable result. However, KSA simply handed us the point and thanks to the Referee and the PK call that went in our favor, plus Saudi strikers bad day at the office, we came out with a point. Besides the last 20-25 minutes, I didn't see much from our beloved TM, and for now we only got the result, but performance as a whole, was a failure and I can only hope that we will actually come out with a game plan in the next 7 games and I like to see our middle-fielders kind of know what to do with the ball when they receive it and I also like to see our defenders not just think about shooting the ball as far away from our goal as possible...Issues with player selection is another story which most of you touched on, specially Kia's exclusion proved to be a mistake in my opinion, and I won't even get into Khatibi and Zare's inclusion

[Ali Chicago]

How can you dare saying that? If we had Kazemian, Mobali, and Asadi, all playing RM at the same time of course, we would have won 27-0. And undoubtedly Zare did nothing right and Sadeghi's presence on the bench completely messed up our game.

Did I forget anything? Maybe Karimi would have scored a couple of hattricks as well. Unfortunately Azizi doesn't play anymore.

Too bad Daei is so damn stupid, but luckily we got a draw from underdogs Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.

Oh boy dark smell of sarcasem right across the big pond.

DD was effective in his campaign against Sadeghi. He has to work a bit harder to get rid of Zareh and then two for two. 50% ain't a bad record.

[Doctor DOOM]

I think we all forgot to mention the absurd timing of the game that had a direct effect on the performance of the players too.

physiologically, the body's PEAK energy levels are at around late afternoon to early evening. That's why many advocate exercising around 4 or 5 PM has more benefits in terms of strengthening muscles and work-rate than early morning ( not all of us are lazy. we DO have a point ).

and as you approach the sleep hours, the body starts to wind down. that's when the game took place! I have never heard or seen games being held at that late hour, which makes the body less energetic. 10 PM ? that's just plain crazy.

I know they were trying to avoid the heat. but 10 PM is really pushing it.
I'd like to know what time is the sun-set in that region at this time of year? 7 ? 8 ? 8:30 maybe? that would have been fine. although we may have the problem of "breaking the fast" for those who fast !!

yes, I'm sure it affected both teams. but I have a feeling the saudis are more used to such late games than our lads. which makes TM's feat even more praise-worthy .... in terms of physical readiness ( not in technical department ).

I think they deserve this extra bit of praise also.

[Masoud_A]

With so many great and knowledgeable posts regarding the game, I will not get into tactical aspects of the game as almost everyone touched on nicely, but simply as a TM fan and really trying to look at this game from an objective point of view, I must say that in the past 20+ years that I have been watching Iran-KSA rivalry, this was probably the second worse Saudi team after their Asian cup 2004 team that I have seen...Just my personal opinion, many may disagree.
This is not to take any credit away from our boys/Daie, which played probably the toughest game of the qualifiers in such a hostile ground and vs. a traditional Arab rival and came out with a point, which on paper, was a favorable result. However, KSA simply handed us the point and thanks to the Referee and the PK call that went in our favor, plus Saudi strikers bad day at the office, we came out with a point. Besides the last 20-25 minutes, I didn't see much from our beloved TM, and for now we only got the result, but performance as a whole, was a failure and I can only hope that we will actually come out with a game plan in the next 7 games and I like to see our middle-fielders kind of know what to do with the ball when they receive it and I also like to see our defenders not just think about shooting the ball as far away from our goal as possible...Issues with player selection is another story which most of you touched on, specially Kia's exclusion proved to be a mistake in my opinion, and I won't even get into Khatibi and Zare's inclusion

I agree with you on the Saudi side being weak, especially their defense line, South Korea doesnt have a Khatibi on their squad so lets see if Saudi can mend their poor def till then.

[Ali Chicago]

I think we all forgot to mention the absurd timing of the game that had a direct effect on the performance of the players too.

physiologically, the body's PEAK energy levels are at around late afternoon to early evening. That's why many advocate exercising around 4 or 5 PM has more benefits in terms of strengthening muscles and work-rate than early morning ( not all of us are lazy. we DO have a point ).


and as you approach the sleep hours, the body starts to wind down. that's when the game took place! I have never heard or seen games being held at that late hour, which makes the body less energetic. 10 PM ? that's just plain crazy.

I know they were trying to avoid the heat. but 10 PM is really pushing it.
I'd like to know what time is the sun-set in that region at this time of year? 7 ? 8 ? 8:30 maybe? that would have been fine. although we may have the problem of "breaking the fast" for those who fast !!

yes, I'm sure it affected both teams. but I have a feeling the saudis are more used to such late games than our lads. which makes TM's feat even more praise-worthy .... in terms of physical readiness ( not in technical department ).

I think they deserve this extra bit of praise also.

Game time in part due to Ramadan. One can't eftar and then go and play football on full tummy. Also TV broadcast right might have had an influence.