New face and new formation against Korea?

[yashar_fasihnia]

thanx for the info mansoor khan.
i really think we would have been worse of if we had played 4-4-2 diamond with only 1 DM and with bagheri as our AM we would have been walked over by the koreans.

kazemi did a great job, inspite of returning back to TM after such a long absence.

i just dont understand why nekounam didnt bother taking shots on goal. bagheri took some but they were weak, just like the rest of his game.
kazemi attempted a few times, like the scene where he won the penalty or even the scene where he dribbled 2 koreans and was getting ready to take a shot but was fouled on (and nekounam scored it) but most of the time, he was staying behind and it was mainly nekounam who was going forward and had the opportunity to take shots.
but nekounam didnt even try.

and wat was disappointing and frustrating was that with both nekounam and kazemi in the field, hosseini and aghili still insisted on "baziye mostaghim" hoping hashemian would win some aerial battles and pass the ball to bagheri or some other midfielder
the koreans werent as short and werent as inferior to us in aerial battle as we expected

[Doctor DOOM]

yes, it is like saying " I think I'd have been worse if I had shot myself with a gun" after cutting myself with a sword!!

But one ought to pause and ask why cut yourself in the first place ?


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On the contrary, a point mansoor jan didnt mention ( since it wouldnt support the 4-2-3-1 formation, perhaps ) is HOW did it make sense to pack the middle and cover for the central defense WHEN WE KNEW KOREANS ARE STRONG ON FLANKS and they base their game NOT penetrating from the middle ( they hardly did that ) , but stretching the opponents wide and then crossing into the box ????

There was NO danger of being penetrated from the middle to pack the middle of the pitch so much. We shd have had wide players like kia, madanchi, hajsafi, heidari, ... who could do BOTH attack and defend on the width and nullify the koreans' strength.

this is what we FAILED to do as seen from so many dangerous crosses and many more resultant attacks that ended in WAY TOO MANY CORNERS conceded by our defenders.

so a 4-4-2 would have made far more sense than this formation.
and yes, a 4-4-2 without bagheri ... as has been the major point of discussion for weeks and months.

[Mansoor]

Good point about Aghili and Hosseini Yashar jaan. I am thinking because of the field condition they were told to do so otherwise it did not make sense to constantly try something that wasn't working. You are right about Nekunam. He has the potential to do much more than he did but I was very satisfied with the two.

Unforturnately, the hole was some where else. Bagheri creates hole in any position he plays, and the black hole he created behind the box was no exception. Any ball going that way would disappear in space!

With this fix and patch in defense, we must have a superb offensive midfield or the lone striker would be that, alone! Daei must change both Bagheri and Khalatbari for the offense to work in this system.

Eventhough Khalatbari was great in fighting for the ball and had a few good runs, it wasn't enough for 4-2-3-1 offense. With one striker, all three offensive midfielders must be superior players. Players of type Madanchi, Hajsafi, Jabbari, and even M.Nouri. They must jump start the offense quickly and effectively, and create good number of chances for the lone strikers and/or other offensive players.

With this line up we can draw draws(!) but it would be hard to win games and I am afraid that would not be enough to qualify.

[xoraster]

Good point about Aghili and Hosseini Yashar jaan. I am thinking because of the field condition they were told to do so otherwise it did not make sense to constantly try something that wasn't working. You are right about Nekunam. He has the potential to do much more than he did but I was very satisfied with the two.
Unforturnately, the hole was some where else. Bagheri creates hole in any position he plays, and the black hole he created behind the box was no exception. Any ball going that way would disappear in space!
With this fix and patch in defense, we must have a superb offensive midfield or the lone striker would be that, alone! Daei must change both Bagheri and Khalatbari for the offense to work in this system.
Eventhough Khalatbari was great in fighting for the ball and had a few good runs, it wasn't enough for 4-2-3-1 offense. With one striker, all three offensive midfielders must be superior players. Players of type Madanchi, Hajsafi, Jabbari, and even M.Nouri. They must jump start the offense quickly and effectively, and create good number of chances for the lone strikers and/or other offensive players.
With this line up we can draw draws(!) but it would be hard to win games and I am afraid that would not be enough to qualify.

Salam manssor jan,

Always nice to hear your thoughts.

Regarding Khalatbary, I thought he did rather well. he kept the ball and unlike many Iranian players, did not create turn over. He did well to set up Kazemi before he got fouled (Where Nekounam scored) and he helped the team in keeping possession.

You mentioned Hajsafi before. Although he did have a weak game against UAE, I would love to see his enthusiasm and direct football in TM. Is there a plan to involve him in TM anytime soon?

[Mansoor]

Salam mokhlesim. Hope everything is going well for you.

I agree that Khalatbari was good, and perhaps he over-played himself. But bottom line does not change that neither one of our off. midfielders were able to create chances inside the box. Perhaps Shojaei did a few but for Khalatbari to play in this system to over-come rather weak one striker formation, he must do much more than that, otherwise our offense would be crippled with this 4-2-3-1.

The formation would definitely help our defensive problems particularly in central defense as we saw against fast and dangerous Koreans, but that have to be compensated with much more functional offensive midfielders or else we will continue to struggle to score since we don't have anybody like Daei or Azizi or Karimi to change the outcome of the game up front.

The initial discussion was to have a trio up there that can potentially generate much more offense via transition or team work than what we saw against Korea for this 4-2-3-1 to be a perfect choice. I beileve we have a good chance to get out of this transitional stage with the trio mentioned, i.e. Hajsafi-Jabbari-Shojaei. And speedy reserves such as Borhani, G.Rezaei, Madanchi, along with potentially Khalili we can keep the offense going for full 90 min.

Agian, with the lone striker, we must have a supporting midfield that constantly pressures the defense and sends useful passes inside the box to eventually convert one or more. And that's the key element to succeed on the offensive aspect of this 4-2-3-1. I don't think Khalatbari did that yesterday and I think we saw his max potential for now unless he surprisingly improves. Yet we must not forget he had Bagheri next to him so that might have had effect in his positioning and ball handling as it did for Hashemian, and someone like Jabbari may help Khalatbari connect into the box better.

Hajsafi has a long way in Daei's mind I believe. He needs to be more impressive in test games for Daei to change his mind. I personally think it is time to send him in toward the end of the match but that is me.

[purple_haze]

Mansoor khan, khaste nabashid and thanks for the info. If this is the case as you are saying and is based on inside info, then there's more hope for the attack.

Can I ask you please to pass something on about our Dentral Defense, which I'm sure everyone agrees with and there are many threads about?
Could you please ask why there aren't any other CD combos tested in friendly games. The current ones are all the same type. Can they not invite and test someone with some other qualities like speed or comfortable with the ball to pair up with one of the typical, muscle relying, ok in the air but not so reliable on the ground types that we have?