An ocean of difference between U16 & U19 team

[maij]

I went to the stadium with full of confidence that Team Melli U19 will bounce back and show their true character by emulating the success of their younger compatriots who recently clinched the Asian Championship .....How wrong was I.

The terminal illnesses of Iranian football were all evident in this match. Lack of focus & concentration, complacency, lack of appreciation for teamwork and last but not least Discipline.

There was no doubt in my mind even after Iran were 2 goals down in the first minutes of the half , that the team can bounce back provided they keep their focus . The Japanese are not natural born footballers , and one on one they cannot match the Iranians but their power lies in discipline ( tactical & individual) and teamwork. They seem to act like professionals at early ages of their career. The Japanese coach despite his claims that he did not know much about Iran, knew more than enough to enable his players deal quite well against Iranian threats. Iranians love for displaying individual skills was spoiled by two and sometimes three players marking the key players and not giving them breathing space. The Japanese defending although shaky at times in my mind , was saved by close marking of Iranian players by both defense and midfield players.

There is a myth about the teams from Japan and Korea and how strong they are or difficult to beat. The reality is that is just a myth. Today , Iran with a bit more focus and concentration could have won the match as the U16 team showed the character of Iran’s football. So , why did this TM youngsters fail ?

My immediate note is about the discipline. I felt a touch of arrogance in the way the U19 team played. I felt that there were some friction after the 2nd goal and a few heated words exchanged unnecessarily between the defenders. The team was more like an 11 individual player rather than a team. The disturbing fact is that Iran display some brilliant moves and good teamwork on occasions, but they were not consistent. And lack of discipline resulted in the players reverting to individual show of skill.

The slow thinking, those extra seconds that the ball stayed with players , failing to see teammates in a better scoring or even passing position and a freighting feeble defense all contributed to this bad result.
It show the brilliance of one Mr. MehrDousti who has managed to control his young U16 team attitude and mentality versus Nened Nicholic who obviously lacks such control at an older level , especially since quite a few of them play in their clubs in the league.

[shayan20]

I did not watch the game but Thanks for your report of the game I can exactly envision how the game was played.
It must be the weakness of the coach for NOT being autocratic in these situations when dealing with his players.
Lack of team work is a major flaw in Iranian football IMO. It's evident even in our senior team, in our clubs.
and it all comes down to the attributes of a coach to manage his team. It doesn't matter if it's in our culture to act like these and nag about following rules and order but the coach plays a big role here.

[The-Red]

bad coaching was evident from the way we started the game, the way game progressed and how we finished. Incompetent coaches and IFF's bad selection...while we had the talent as players, we didn't have the means to put together a Football team that can compete.

[RaginG Inferno]

Thanks for your observations. I think, historically, this has been Iran's problem at all levels. The tactical discipline is often underdeveloped.

[gol_kuchik]

I think this game was a perfect example of bad coaching. The team work was completely absent. Also our defensive technique is just horrible. I could not believe that forth goal. The Japanese attacker just made a joke off of
our defender. And what was with this spasms in both games? Were we
eveny physically prepared for these games? Considering none of S.A or
Japanese players exhibited spasm problem it shows again screwed up coaching.

When I saw how
easily we gave that first corner I got the shivers, like I think we are going to
concede real easy which we did.

Also as the game wore on, I think they completely adjusted to our style
and we had nothing to say. Sure we got couple of blown chances, but I
sensed Japans coach approach was: we can score anytime we want on
this team. So we let them score before we do more, and they did that real
well.

Our main issue as is very obvious in IPL as well as TM is just bad defense.
The forth goal was again a great example of how inferior our defenders played.

[maij]

Good inputs from all , thanks.

The question that bothers me is why the U16 team did not display those weaknesses of the U19 in all departments like defending , concentration , team work and Discipline (although a felt a little bit of complacency in the U16 team as well )

The fingers can be pointed at the coach in the first place , but I do believe that some of the U19 players have a chip on their shoulder and probably think they are already stars!

I hate to repeat it all the time and I am not being bias , but the Japanese where no match for the individuals skills of Iranian players , but in today's football the Messi's , Ronaldinho's and Kaka's cannot win matches on their own. This mentality of individualism that has marred Iran's football for decades MUST be changed and it needs good management and coaching to do that. And it has to be done at this level of football at younger age levels , else if you leave it late , this mentality might never change.

I admire the Saudi's for one thing.

After defeats , the Chairman of their FA requires a full report about the shortcomings of the team from coaches and managers. They study and analyze and normally implement the necessary changes. Some of the reports are published , but many remains confidential for obvious reasons.
This sort of approach is instrumental in their continuous success.

The other thing that Iran lacks, is proper analysis of games in the media (specially print media). Look at any sport newspaper in Iran and all you see is quotes by felan felan , and hot air claims by coaches and players , rumors and personal opinions by journalist on this or that player.

You hardly find technical analysis and if it is done sparingly , it is by either amateur journalist or coaches that have been a failure themselves and hence lack of credibility. You can notice the bulk of the criticism in such reports are about players selection rather than technical shortcoming of the team.

Poor media coverage on the technical aspects for public awareness but more importantly the failure of the IFF to establish study group to properly analyze the team weaknesses in order to build a better strategy for future.

They have Human Afazeli at their disposal and he is a great asset in such study group. I truly urge IFF to look into this matter and the end result of the study group report needs to be distributed to the clubs.

Of course we have a great cultural issue here as well...In Iran , everybody is "Dana" and other coaches might not accept what someone else tries to preach...but that can be overcome by time.


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