UAE - IRAN game

[Doctor DOOM]

First half:

The whole team played like little retarded children who have never touched a ball in their lives !!
The whole team!
This was the most pitiful and pathetic display of passing I’ve ever seen from any collection of 11 players trying to play football, inclusive of school teams.

We lost the middle of the pitch to them, while we had “names” like nekounam, bagheri, … in the line up.
I thought bringing bagheri was to add to the leadership up front.
Where was this leadership?

As I wrote in the other thread, expectedly our team also lacked imagination and creativity. Simply becoz daei, as usual, ignores the role of a “playmaker”. He thinks “players will do something all by themselves. Maybe they’ll get lucky or something” !!!!!!!

VH for all his years abroad, played like my 10 year old neighbor ! he was a cipher and an inconsequential player. Much like everyone else.

The ONLY player who did well, as usual with our recent TM’s, is the GK !!! Rahmati saved us on 2-3 occasions that we could have easily been 3 goals down by halftime.

With all that rubbish I feel ridiculous talking about teamwork, team tactics, … that after so many games and months still are missing in TM.
When is it ok to demand team tactics from daei’s team ?
After 4 years?

[faraz]

Peyman Jan,

I think it's best at this point to count our blessings and never discuss this game again...

[Doctor DOOM]

Second half:

1- bagheri’s goal. Does it justify 90 minutes of very poor game?
Yes. His goal gets us a point. But who’s to say if we had a playmaker play for 90 minutes we wouldn’t have drawn or even win ?
Coz bagheri was more or less non-existent the whole game.

2- Nekounam was in extremely poor form. That from a player who played so well at osasuna’s game ?

3- kia’s subbing was justified and correct. He wasn’t doing well at all.
But why so late ?

4- shojaei on the left was as expected and discussed before. He wasn’t good at all.
His only few nice moves and passes came from the right & middle of the pitch.
Which means yet another horrible decision to start with him on the left.


5- speaking of horrible decisions, lets talk about benching madanchi for shojaie !!!
most pitiful decision. And madanchi’s few minutes’ display proves what was apparent DAYS BEFORE THE GAME.
Nothing in hindsight here.
Imagine if daei wasn’t so gung-ho about “names” rather than form and nature of the player.


6- VH was another ghost and total cipher.
Salehi’s few minutes display proved twice as effective as VH’s 80 minutes !
Horrible decision was in daei persisting with VH for that long. He shd have made this sub in minute 60.


7- Ghorbani was traveling between extremes in the game. At times he defended like a little bully who fouled with no heed of where he’s doing it. and at times he did quite well in covering for others and intercepting.


8- Rahmati – need I talk about him anymore?
But isn’t it a very poor reflection on the coach that constantly his best player who keeps saving his behind is his GOAL KEEPER. Not his forwards or mids or defenders.
His goal keeper, the last player who comes to play when everyone else fails !!!
What does that say ?



9- Once again, as usual, I was witness to some of the most pathetic and horrible set pieces performed by any team, irrespective of their age and gender.
a team of 15 year old school girls would have understood to vary their corners and set pieces a bit and no constantly send in low ones ( seen in the second half especially ) !!!


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

Daei’s massive inexperience shows in these decisions and subbings. He desperately needs an experienced fellow next to him.
I must also add the pathetic quality of the team on display. Absolutely pitiful and painful to watch !


WHEN is it ok to expect quality football from a team and coach?
Isn’t it high time we saw it?
I’m not talking about European standard quality. I’m talking about asian standard.
Today, the bottom-feeder team in our group played TWICE as well as ours !
They’re out of contention and as good as eliminated!
Isn’t it tragic?

Enough blind support.
Enough closing our eyes to the problems and expecting everyone to turn their heads.
Enough.
Time to man up.
Time to man up and tell the truth.
Enough putting the good of individuals over the good of TEAM MELLI.



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

And for those who wanted stats of zareh, here are his first half stats:
Positive ( good marking, interception, good passing forward, … ) – 7
Negatives ( missing in position, bad marking, bad passing, … ) – 11

Second half:
Positives – 3
Negatives – 10

Total :
Positives – 10
Negatives – 21

Pretty much in line with all his previous games. Negatives twice of positives !

[The-Red]

For the third game in a row, no game plan, no tactic, we get results thanks to SEYED MEHDI RAHMATI...for the 3rd game in a row...May God be with us as he has in the last 3 games.
NO improvements whatsoever, nothing new, no changes, no positives to take out of this game....
As far as the players, big names dissapointed, while one or two younger players showed motivations. sad that we have to be thankful to our keeper again for the result...sheereh madarsh halalesh vali.

[Doctor DOOM]

halfway through the second half I was thinking only a miracle can save us. well, the miracle did happen.
its name was rahmati !

without this single player, this game could have easily been a 6-1 defeat !!!!!

what a shameful day for our football !

[KasraKhan]

Daei owes his coaching career to Rahmati. If we didnt have him in the net, Daei would've been sacked by now back in the first round of qualifying

[Doctor DOOM]

while I'm relieved ksa lost in saudi, but that doesnt change matters too much for us. they lost points to a contender. we lost points to a non-contender.
and I'm afraid that may come back to haunt us !!!


after this draw, we are still 2 points behind teams like ksa and north korea ( and definitely south korea , who WILL defeat uae at uae ).

the fixture that all our rivals gained 3 points, we lost 2 !!

there is no room for screw ups anymore. we cant be choosey or lajbaaz or ... anymore.
from this point on, things will get very serious.
coz the only way we can gain on our rivals is for uae to GO TO KSA and N Korea and at least get a draw.
against south korea? I'm very pessimistic that would happen.

[maij]

On the first half comments , I must say that I fully and completely agree with Peyman.

On the second , specially after the substitution, the pressure on UAE was intense and it was nothing like the team in the first half.

[Martin-Reza]

On the first half comments , I must say that I fully and completely agree with Peyman.

On the second , specially after the substitution, the pressure on UAE was intense and it was nothing like the team in the first half.

I totally agree.

The number or unforced errors by our players overall is worrying though.

[Paradigm]

Second half:
1- Nekounam shojaei madanchi DAYS BEFORE THE GAME.
Nothing in hindsight here.
.
6- VH Ghorbani Rahmati GOAL KEEPER. Not his forwards or mids or defenders.
His goal keeper, the last player who comes to play when everyone else fails !!!
What does that say ?

9- Once again, as usual, I was witness to some of the most pathetic and horrible set pieces performed by any team, irrespective of their age and gender.
a team of 15 year old school girls would have understood to vary their corners and set pieces a bit and no constantly send in low ones ( seen in the second half TWICE TEAM MELLI

I agree with you 1000% Dr Doom. This is a true tragedy and I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel given the way Daie is steering the team. Even if we qualify to the WC, it will mean a first round exit just like the previous editions. I am completely speechless. If there is a God I hope he will rescue TM.

[faraz]

I agree with you 1000% Dr Doom. This is a true tragedy and I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel given the way Daie is steering the team. Even if we qualify to the WC, it will mean a first round exit just like the previous editions. I am completely speechless. If there is a God I hope he will rescue TM.

That may be true, but I think we can take a lot of positives from such a bad game.

For example:

a) Maadanchi (although he possesses that head-down and run style) was effective. This means it might be a good idea to BENCH KIA, move Shojaei to the right, and start Maadanchi so that for the first time in a long time, we can maybe have some balance on the wings?

b) Ghorbani is probably not ideal for our CB position - it may have just been this game. As someone mentioned, he had some great scenes and some absolutely brutal ones where he had no regard for where the ball was on the field and fouled blatantly in pretty dangerous positions

c) Perhaps it's time Hashemian also sits on the bench for more active players like Salehi, Khalili and so on. I've said it in another thread, and I know the Karimi saga is over, but I keep envisioning a Karimi-Rezaei duo up front with Karimi sitting just a tad behind him .

d) I'm not sure using Karim was a good idea (even though he scored), but given the injury situation of Jabbari/Zandi, I'm not sure Daei is to blame. We most certainly lacked a true playmaker today.

All in all, let's breathe a sigh of relief and thank our graces for what could have been an absolutely dreadful 3-0 blowout by what appeared to be a fast, technically gifted and motivated UAE team. I couldn't believe they kept the tempo so high for the full 90 minutes!

[maij]

Like always , I like to credit the coach for something and that his his substitution starting early in the 2nd half.

I must admit that I was so pissed off with the performance in the first half, that I nearly left he pitch either to leave the stadium completely fearing a humiliating defeat ... But the terrific support by the Iranian fans was extremely inviting and colorful and something to relish.

, and I just got glued to them and stayed trying to look for Yashar in vain..

Saying that , there is no escape the fact that one day this team's luck will run out if they performed liked the first half. I must give the UAE credit as well, I have said it before , those results against the rest does not reflect the real standard of this talented young team.

I am begining to doubt if Daei was convinced with his initial line up or was forced upon him by some circumstances. I said in a post on the other thread that Madanchi would have been more productive...He was , but quite late in the game.

Is this publich outcry and calling for Player X or Player X is getting to Daei . I wonder??

Just go back a few threads and see how many people criticized Daei , including the Doc himself , when Mahdavikia was left out from the team ????
and we all saw Kia's performance vs young Gholamnejad......

Let's face it...this team needs young blood.... We have tried EXPERIENCE and TRUSTED players simply they (Javab nadadan) ...it does not seem to acheive much or at least not to our expectation......Let us go for the younger ones and give it our best shoot...At least we will be building for the future.

[Hadi]

This was the worst game I've seen from Iran in a long long time.

Daie has run out of time. How has this team improved since the Saudi match?
Let's not let the late Bagheri goal fool us. Our team was worst than a third class Asian team.

I am sad for all iranian fans who had to go through the torment of watching this abomination of a performance on their TV Sets, let alone those in the stadium.

[Doctor DOOM]

majid jan, I am the first guy to say kia played very poorly.
but that doesnt make him a bad choice for TM. far from it.

if we have to go by only ONE game and only this game, then not only kia, but also nekounam, rezaei, shojaei, kaabi, hosseini, VH, .... shd be dropped.
will you agree?

Kia proved his worth in the previous game.
he had a bad game, much like every other fixed player in this game ( except rahmati ).
and lets face it. he isnt exactly like zareh , who is extremely consistent in his poor performances.
I would be fair and let kia play a couple of more games. if by then, he hasnt bounced back, then I'd be the first person to ask for his replacement.

and btw, what exactly did you see from gholamnejad anyway, to make that comparison comment?
he was absolutely average.
nothing to talk about that performance.



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

It is one thing to talk about issues in advance of that event happening, like predicting matters.
but it is something else to say things in hindsight and post-event about the issues of that event.

nobody expected such a poor display from the likes of kia, nekounam or kaabi or ... .
so here, Daei is forgiven for counting on these guys and starting with them.

but days before it was apparent that playing shojaei on the left when you have madanchi, who plays his football against the very same opponents, weekly, is quite foolish.
not only that, but also the fact that it restricts shojaei's efficiency.
or the matter of VH vs. Salehi, based on what we've seen from VH in the past year or more.
or zareh's continuing miserable showings.
these issues were predicted way before the game. so my comments are not in hindsight, but mere predictions of what we'd most probably see. just putting 2 and 2 together.

[shayan20]

What's there to talk about this poooor game.??

Daei should have never used Hashemian, Kia, Bagheri (3 slow oldies) against the fast tempo UAE team. It's just suicide.
They exploited our weakness amazingly.

But I must say Daei's subs were inch perfect.
Except starting with the wrong players, Daei shoudln't be too much blamed for the loss. How can the players' surprisingly poor performance relate to the coach.
I mean Shojaei-Nekounam. Who would have thought we lose the midfield to UAE due to the poorest games of these two that have been doing great for Osasuna.

Everything hand in hand went all together for our team's ridiculous performance.