Mister championship

[Doctor DOOM]

There are quite a few people who believe the main reason for saipa's championship was the same reason pp won its latest championship.
the main common factor between the two is one player: Khalili.

Khalili is also the factor that was missing in the previous edition of pp where under denizli's charge, they played fantastic attacking football but didnt win . becoz there was no striker to convert all those opportunities to goals.

I presume he will be busy with his rehab for the next 2-3 months.
his return is eagerly awaited by pp and TM.
but will he bounce back to his old form?
will he be able to perform at the same level?

I certainly hope so, especially for TM's sake.
coz we'd need such a striker for the last 3-4 TM games.

[Hadi]

I think Iran has not seen a natural target man like Khalili since Daie's time and he was indeed a big force behind both championships for Saipa and Perspolis.

But to attribute a league championship to one player is absurd.

[yashar_fasihnia]

khalili is one.

daei and ghotbi the another.
if u notice, both the teams were competing for championship and towards the end, started going down the drain.

but the strong psychological abilities of these 2 coaches, both of whom have clearly demonstrated this before, were able to turn around their team and push them back into championship.

i remember in a navad program after saipa won the league, yazdani and khalili were invited and ferdosipour asked them how did saipa manage to bounce back and win the league and they both without any hesitation said the way "aghaei daei teamo jamo joor kard"...

as for ghotbi and his psychological abilities, we have seen enough video clips of them and needs no explanation.

[Doctor DOOM]

not to discount the coach's impact, but in this case the most prominent factor was "a goal scoring forward".

even denizli went through a slump in second half of the season and the team bounced back from 6th or 7th rank ended up at 3rd finally. But he didnt have a "goal scoring striker" to put his nose ahead of the competition at the finish line, like the other 2 cases.

so I guess there is a common thread running through all 3 examples ( and generally most club season campaigns ).
we dont regularly see a team that starts big and continues ahead of the rest and finishes that far ahead. especially more uncommon in semi pro football like ours.


so I think khalili was a major reason for those championships. If you remember, midseason khalili's form dropped and he wasnt scoring very many goals for quite a few weeks. and true to form, pp's form dropped as well and they either lost or drew many games that normally they'd have won. another evidence of the claim.

and I think khalili's absence is shown in pp's poor results this season. another reason to back up my statement on the importance of khalili ( or generally speaking, a "goal scoring forward" )

[gol_kuchik]

I would have bought this argument Peymon jan, had PP not scored 5 in the past 2 games.
The problem is their defense and huge spaces they allow, lack of marking and amazing
slowness in the back field something Khalili can contribute
very little to. PP seems to be attacking, because they simply dont know how to control
the pace of the game. With that strategy, counter attacks will be very successful as
we have witnessed. PP in offense (and if we extraploate for the game in
hand) is number 2 or 3 in terms of goals scored, yet the are only 3 teams worse than PP
as far as number of goals allowed. (so one of the worst IPL defenses).

I very much doubt Khalili could have done anything because offense is not the issue.
On the other hand, if you look back at TM's dry spell in 3rd round of qualification,
Kahlili did not do much of anything to turn things around (where individual contribution
may have helped all those 0-0 games).

[Doctor DOOM]

oh. absolutely.
pp's defense is at the moment, its weak point.
no doubt about that one.
but I think their conversion rate is still far below their normal standards, given their capacity for creating dangerous situations.
and yes, inspite of the 5 recent goals.
DeCarmo has to find his footing there. and niki has been erratic. only recently karimi has found his scoring boots and we dont know how the team will turn out later. perhaps with karimi in form and DeCarmo fitting in, they will compensate for khaili's absence.
but I think it's just more than mere co-incidence that whenever khalili was in form, his teams were freely scoring goals and rising in the table and when he wasnt, his teams stagnated.

as for the goals scored in games, we all know teams can score more than 3 or 4. so perhaps a fit khalili would have "added" to those goals in each game and turned the result of the game around.

[yashar_fasihnia]

even during denizli's times, perpolis problem wasnt its offense, it was its defense.

denizli's perspolis was the highest goal scoring team in the league but it conceded so many goals that it couldnt win the league. all the 4 goals it conceded left and right from its opponents was more than just coincidence.

same with pas, denizli's pas had the strongest offense line and highest number of goals scored again in the league, but they couldnt earn as many points as esteghlal cos of their weaker defense.

so its much more beyond than having a striker like khalili or not...

denizli's teams had problems in defense.

[Martin-Reza]

He indeed was a keyplayer for Saipa and Perspolis and could be one in Team Melli. We could well need a couple of players of his kind.

[zzgloo]

khalili is one.
daei and ghotbi the another.
if u notice, both the teams were competing for championship and towards the end, started going down the drain.
but the strong psychological abilities of these 2 coaches, both of whom have clearly demonstrated this before, were able to turn around their team and push them back into championship.
i remember in a navad program after saipa won the league, yazdani and khalili were invited and ferdosipour asked them how did saipa manage to bounce back and win the league and they both without any hesitation said the way "aghaei daei teamo jamo joor kard"...
as for ghotbi and his psychological abilities, we have seen enough video clips of them and needs no explanation.

I am convinced ,in Iranian Football, psycological job of a coach , ( unfortunately !! ),is and has been more important than technical and strategical aspects !!................
What Daei did was to transfer his aggresive mentality to his players and demanded success !!
& What Ghotbi did was , that he made PP players to believe they were the best !!and deserveing the championship !
I also doubt, either of those coaches would be able to repeat such job, as they were only able to do so, because of thier enthusiasm of thier first head coaching job...as .always the case with iranians, they can not repeat !, because they get over confident , and over estimate themseleves !!!

[Ali Chicago]

While the role of a goal getter is undeniable and his impact is the difference between a great or a mediocer season, I think Payman jaan, you are a bit (just a lil bit), overestimating Khalili's role.

[Doctor DOOM]

hehehe
fellows, of course I'm giving a bit more importance to khalili than needed.
But maybe that's becoz of too many "co-incidents" that drew his team's fortunes rising and falling parallel to khalili's form rising & falling.
these coincidents compel me to say this.

and of course it can never be just ONE MAN deciding the fate of a whole team. But the man, as said many times by many ppl earlier, is the KEY factor in those victories.

[perspolees]

khalili had his run for tm remember. Not all the time a club winner i a tm bread winner also. At the moment I think Karimi would be an exceptional choice for our attack. SO sorry that we have to go thru this daei-karimi ordeal, but it is what it is....