Iran - Ecuador

[Doctor DOOM]

First half observations:

1- the first thing I'd like to say is ASHJARI at LB is a revelation.
thank you daei for inviting him.
the guy hasnt stepped a foot wrong in this half.
has impressed with his pace ( saved a couple of dangerous opportunities ) and has been very active.
in one half, whatever he's done equals 2 YEARS of zareh's .


2- the second thing is that going by the first half's performance, I believe this team ( TM B or C even ), could have got a better result against uae.

3- Kaabi is proving to be suspect on crosses ... as usual.
I dont know if anything can be done about this, coz his height is unchangeable.


4- Jamshidian played well and deserves the start.
all he needs is a little experience and a level head to flourish.

5- Hajsafi and rezaei also showed good form.

6- and finally, maziyar ZAREH has been magnificent.
a true leader in the middle of the park.


the rest have been either average or havent done anything too right or too wrong so far.
by second half I will have a better view of the rest.

[Doctor DOOM]

Second half:

1- I think kaabi's poor and below average form continued in this half and I partially blame him for missing in the goal situation, and failing to mark his man.
maybe he shd be put on notice that unless he shapes up, he's not going to be starting TM games anymore.

2- after the goal, TM lost its concentration and focus. expectedly, coz of the number of new comers and inexperienced players in the squad. I wouldnt really hold it against them anyway. given time, they will gain more experience.


3- hosseini ought to be told NOT to go on lobbing balls from the defense.
he is NOT the playmaker of the team and there are others who are. he shd only pass it to the midfield.
he lobs too many times for comfort.


4- after the goal, I had to check and re-check if we were still playing ecuador or bahrain. LOL.

5- That foul on rezaei shd have been called and we deserved the penalty near the end.

6- as usual, the two areas where many of us have been mentioning at TM havent been covered yet !
a- the alarmingly low number of shots in a game
b- the poor quality of free-kicks and poor planning for them.

these two issues have been persisting at TM for the longest time. and after so many months and games, still nobody bothers about these two issues!
why?
why shd these be ignored?
teams WIN games and championships based on their shooting and freekicks.
why shd TM be denied of this?



overall, I am satisfied with this team's performance.
elated about a few players like zareh, ashjari, jamshidian, rezaei and hajsafi.
nouri, ghorbani and rahmati were good as well.
hosseini was good in defense, but he shd stop lobbing balls.
but I'm worried about kaabi.

and I'm not sad that we end up playing china also.
I'd rather play china than oman, in our run up to the korea game.

[faraz]

Totally agree on the long balls. Although most professional defenders are adept at ball distribution if they're forced to, almost always the defensive midfielder floats in front and gets within close proximities and ALWAYS receives a pass from them for distribution.

They need to know their roles better - no reason why Hosseini should be pumping balls the length of a football field...

Totally right on the lethal amount of grassrolling, which is just simply embarrassing...it's a friendly for god's sakes - seems like Ecuador would rather win than learn something about their team...

DD Jan - I saw two freekicks and both were decent, near the end of the game). One was struck well, but too central and the goalkeeper could only punch it away. The other was inches wide of the net and on the ground - the direct free kicks were not bad at all from what I saw - I suppose there are others I may have missed.

Overall, I saw a lot of new faces I did not know and was quite happy about that.

This may have been our most useful friendly in a long, long, long, long time?

[yashar_fasihnia]

i really think jalal rafkhaei is atbest average.
he is a much weaker version of majidi.
smaller and weaker, less experienced, and selfish.
i wouldnt want him anywhere close to TM frankly.

i was disappointed by our midfield line as well. it was slow, uncreative, transition from defense to offense was very weak and support to our 2 forwards was almost non existent, or too late too little when there.
maziar zare fought well, but like always, he doesnt cover much ground. he needs to run more. compare him to kazemi, rahmati and nekounam who all approach the defense, take the ball and carry it forward, distributing to midfield or forward. he should also move more infront when the team is attacking.
maziar zare needs to do that more, otherwise he fought well and lead the midfield quite well.

the other 3 were disappointing. i expected more creativity from nouri. cant remember a single through pass or some valuable exceptional pass or dribbling to create a golden opportunity for the team. every AM has atleast 2 3 such scenes per game: karimi, jabbari, navidkia....
hajisafi's corners were either to short or too long. how many corners, we got, not one was even threatening. he was very average on the field as well.

jamshidian was average. he had a good physical presence, but not very effective and frankly, quite slow.

we needed players like bao who were more creative and quicker, who could break through the layers of ecuadorian defense.

seyed salehi and borhani also, overall disappointing.

[Doctor DOOM]

although it is a bit premature on some names and I'd like to see the same starting line up against china to get a better idea, but out of this team I'd pick ashjari, zareh, hajsafi and rezaei for the main TM squad.

ghorbani, nouri, borhani & jamshidian can be on the reserves list for times when TM needs a different kind of player.
( aside from these, I still like rahmati and salehi to be included , although they didnt get much play time today )


notice, I'm leaving out hosseini , kaabi and rahmati out as they WILL be in TM's official 23 man squad anyway.
I still say kaabi ought to be given a warning about his poor form.

[yashar_fasihnia]

for next game against china who didnt seem that threatening today against oman,,,,

i would like talebloo to play a little as well, if he doesnt get to play in these friendlies, when should he play then? we obviously cant play him in official games...

defense, ashjari can play again on the left. hosseini montazeri plz in the middle

and midfield, i would go with kianush rahmati, meysam bao, mohammad nouri and either hajisafi or khalatbari.

upfront, once again rezai and borhani and please not rafkhaei...

[yashar_fasihnia]

that being said, considering this team consisted of mostly our reserves and bench players, specially the midfield, im a bit less worried now. i was really worried about the vast gap between our starters and our reserves.

these guys didnt play all that bad... they were more a victim of experience and luck...

[Doctor DOOM]

Yashar jan, if this was our main team or at least a team that didnt have 80% newcomers and single digit capped players, I'd have raised the issue of creativity and cohesion up front.
you are correct to bring it up, but I guess we shd be a bit lenient on these youngsters. at least we shd wait for the china game to see how they fare.

we shdnt expect nouri to emulate the likes of karimi, jabbari or navidkia anyway.
he is a good player, but it is CLEAR that he isnt in their league.
My opinion is kolahkaj, who runs things at saba ( not nouri ) would have fared slightly better than him. But still nowhere near those guys you mentioned.

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

and you are spot on for a change of GK.
we know rahmati is in top form.
we shd try to find a suitable alternative for him.
by keeping with rahmati and not testing others seriously, daei is doing the same mistake branko made with mirza in all those meaningless test games.


also ur comment on this team being a victim of experience is very true.
I'd venture if this team had played together for 4-5 games before the uae game, they'd have done better than our main TM.

[yashar_fasihnia]

the thing about nouri is, i have seen some great passes, dribbling and vision from him in saba, sepahan and even in TM a few times he played. so i was expecting more of him... i guess he still hasnt reached that level to be a key player for TM yet...

and yea, i was disappointed to see kolahkaj wasnt even in the final 23 squad.
hope to see him there soon...

[Doctor DOOM]

dont worry about nouri or kolahkaj anyway. their time will come.

if we take karimi as one generation and put mobaali, jabbari & navidkia as the next one, the one after them are shojaei, kolahkaj and nouri who shd evolve and develop as TM playmakers.
the first gen'n has the quality and experience , but I guess age is against them.
the second has the quality and the required int'l experience, while age is still on their side.
the latest gen'n is the one who have the quality and some amount of experience but not enough. and still have plenty of time to lay their claim.
and thankfully, for the next gen'n we have the likes of jamshidian who are showing enough talent to assure all of us.

so it makes more sense to use the middle gen'n guys for TM's playmaking as they have all the required criteria at the moment. but nothing wrong with trying out other fellas either.

[maij]

Like always there were positive and negative points that has been very well covered by all of you guys...

Some of the positive points that I like to mention is the beautiful flowing short passes football , that has been missing from Iranian football. It was a breathe of fresh air to me.

I hate the type of football that a player takes 4 or 5 seconds to think about passing or crossing or even dribbling. Modern Football is about moving the ball swiftly between players until a gap is found or a player in forward is available in a good position.

I also agree with Yashar Agha about the effectiveness of the midfield players. Although they played beautiful flowing football , there was not many good balls to service the forwards.

I also Agree with Doc on shooting. This is pretty much a reflection of the league in Iran. There are far too few shots from medium ranges and if they are attempted they are off target , some times embaressingly.

I really don't care about the result , nor that Dick-head of a referee , the style of the team matters most and I think it was a good game with many lessons learnt , but...no serious problems solved.

I don't know if Daei found any serious solutions for the main team, somehow I doubt it. The shortcomings of the A team are still pending in my opinion. Poor defensive coverage , lead to the Only goal. Poor fininshing is still there , a team that hufs and puffs but does not score can be easily scored upon and lose matches.....

So , the jury is still out , neverthanless a decent display despite the loss.

[maij]

BTW: Doc, I did not find anything spectacular in Hassan Ashjari. His first move was a Karate kick that should have earned him a yellow card very early in the game and in the rest of the match , he was hardly tested in anger.

Saying that , he should definitely be an option for the A team but better yet , he should be tested more often.

I am also not that keen on Mazyar Zare either. I believe that he is over hyped. There is no way that he can be a threat to Nekounam , but an option , neverthanless. On the other hand , I am impressed by Mohammad Nouri. He has the style of Navidkia and the brains to go with it , but like Navidkia , his physique is really not built for tough international opponents.

[Martin-Reza]

Ashjari is a moron, he should have been redcarded in the first minute for his idiotic murder kick. Glad to have Zare . Now that is an exaggeration, but that scene was really idiotic. Afterwards Ashjari was ok, not to forget the goal came over his side, sth DD would blame Zare for in many many bold letters

Let's have another look at him against China before we announce the new LB revelation for th 100th time in the past 4 years.

[Martin-Reza]

I am also not that keen on Mazyar Zare either. I believe that he is over hyped. There is no way that he can be a threat to Nekounam , but an option , neverthanless. On the other hand , I am impressed by Mohammad Nouri. He has the style of Navidkia and the brains to go with it , but like Navidkia , his physique is really not built for tough international opponents.

Apart from agreeing on Ashjari, I totally agree with that part. I had high hopes in Maziar Zare when I saw him in Team Omid, but he seems to be yet another slow thinker with no real strength (apart from shooting).

Mohammad Nouri, I'm in love with this guy , although I think he wasn't that good today and only true connoiseurs would value his quick thinking, fine footwork and clever distribution today. Yet I must say he must try to become more effective, although an OM position with only one DM and no CMs is not a thankful position, because it requires loads of defensive work.

[Doctor DOOM]

while you guys take his teakwondo kick and talk about it, I'd rather say this was his first TM game and inexperience had much to do with it. to be honest he wasnt looking at who was lunging for the ball and raised his leg ... much like an inexperienced guy.

But what I looked at was how he defended, tackled, ran back and covered.
basically assessing the raw material that needs to settle in an international arena.
in the first half he was brilliant.
and his only negative in the second half was when the whole team lost focus and he had one turn-over and once he took his eyes off the ball and he ball ran away, but he gathered it immediately anyway.
basically, he was fast & quick ( zareh is not ), he passed well ( zareh doesnt ), he marked well ( zareh doesnt ), he wasnt muscled out of a ball and he looked comfortable in that post ( zareh doesnt ) , I assume becoz it IS his post at the club too ( zareh's isnt ).

this is what I'm talking about.
I understand the urge to persist with & support the "party line" though