Central defense

[Keshwardoost]

I have never been a big fan of taking back retired players to TM, and specially older ones. But seing PP play in ACL and seing Rahman Rezaei being in good shape, I just cant ignore the feeling that he would make our whole defence stronger. I bet he would be easy to convince of coming back, just telling him that heres his chance to make people remember him for something other than his misstake against Mexico in WC.

I actually never liked him, but he would work well today, atleast in this last 3 games. He also was pretty good on getting away deep througballs that we have problems with. Pretty good positioning and also solid in the air.

I know it may be a long shot, but..

[Paradigm]

Do Alavi and Nosrati still exist?

[Doctor DOOM]

speaking of defenders, after seeing Shakouri in last SS game ( against their qatari opponents ) I was very impressed by his performance.

he was everywhere and helped in defense and offense. but in defense, he didnt give any quarter to the qataris and was successful in duels by a huge margin.

I dont know why GN has benched him, but I think this game shd have given GN and MK a pause.
I would really like to see him get called up and tried in a test game.

same thing with saba's Asadi.

[mehdy]

speaking of defenders, after seeing Shakouri in last SS game ( against their qatari opponents ) I was very impressed by his performance.

he was everywhere and helped in defense and offense. but in defense, he didnt give any quarter to the qataris and was successful in duels by a huge margin.

I dont know why GN has benched him, but I think this game shd have given GN and MK a pause.
I would really like to see him get called up and tried in a test game.

same thing with saba's Asadi.

Shakouri is my favorite defender,he can beat even Daei in the air,and have a good speed.
Moreover,his pass skill is good.

[yashar_fasihnia]

wat impresses me most about shakouri is his courage to do anything for his team and defend.
he is read to place himself infront of every shot, head the ball at any height and place himself in danger of getting injured, and even play while injured.


unfortunately, this is wat i have noticed montazeri lacks. he isnt very brave and often turns around or tries to dodge the long range shots that are going towards esteghlals goal.
if i remember correctly, the 2nd goal esteghlal conceded from al ittihad was going towards montazeri who turned away from the shot and the ball went in!
and similar scenes where montazeri has shied away from shots on goal or crosses on goal or something.

add to that shakouris much stronger physique and dominance in the air.

however, shakouri is slow too and montazeri's speed and better footwork is probably wat makes GN use montazeri, specially since in esteghlal, one of the CBs always adds to the flank in times of offense like a fullback. usually it is montazeri who helps heydari and janvario on the right side in moving forward.

[Kasra.]

Other than Agha Kasra I think that is an important point. The defense and especially the centerbacks needgood coordination and it would be a setback to stop the development and start with a new duo, but due to the facts that I only want to change one of them and want to introduce a very experienced quality man, I think it wouldn't be that much of a risk. What a co-incidence as well that Hosseini always plays right CB and Rezaei always played left CB in TM, wouldn't that match perfectly... ?

I had to bring this up .

We saw how we failed against the Saudis. Are we willing to change our defense line now or do you still want the same old four failures? We all saw how not changing the centerbacks backfired us. Are we willing to take that risk?

[Paradigm]

Defenitely get rid of Kaabi, he is not playing like in 2004-2006 anymore. We need a couple of really tall and strong center mids, just like Germany has...

[BehzadB]

3) Build-up: Both Hosseini and Aghili rely on too many high balls, most of them being recovered by the opponent rather easily.

I think , after speed (or lack thereof), build up is the biggest lack of our central backs and it is an epidemic.. we just don't have any CBs who is half decent at this.. I think the last CB who was kinda ok at this was Golmamad and Khakpour..

damn.. now that I think about it, we are really poor at this position.

[Doctor DOOM]

on "build up":
we all have commented on a few matters occasionally. matters like:
1- OVER-doing the passing in between the defenders. Mostly lateral and often useless ones!

2- lack of one of Def-Mids or CM's coming back to RECEIVE the ball from the defenders **

3- unintelligent passing between the defenders that puts pressure on the receiver to "kick it away from danger" when the opponents converge on him.

you put the above 3 points together and you'd see half of the problem is not Hosseini's or Aghili's lobbing. there are other factors involved too.

if they dont over-do the passing between themselves and if the CMs come to receive the ball from them, I am sure many of these useless lobs can be done away with, and naturally you get a CORRECT BUILD UP from ur back line .


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** - I half blame the CMs but I also blame the line up selected also.
coz I can understand why our CMs dont like to be picked as a fool who either loses the ball or is forced to pass back to the defense line ( basically look like he's merely passing just to have done something !!! read : raf'e takleef ) becoz HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE BALL at each & every occasion !!!!!

.... which brings in the matter of a "playmaker".

this is why a playmaker is an important ingredient in any team, coz he wouldnt be stuck in the middle trying to figure out just what to do with the ball like most other CM's and Def-Mids.
More often than not he MAKES something happen with that ball ... as compared to the other CMs or DM's who either pass laterally or back or lose the ball or waste time with the ball or .... !!!

[BehzadB]

^^ essentially our CB's don't know how to play football, they just know how to get rid of it.. that problem, in my humble opinion, is the main reason why our football is so far behind the 'top' class football..

When we were kids playing on the streets of the neighborhood, I remember every time we wanted to make a team the guys that weren't that good were always sent back to play, well, as "backs". and since they weren't good at playing football or running, all they would have to do was "get rid of it", instead of playing it..

I mean look at our players who have made it to Europe.. we have had forwards who reached top class football leagues (Daie, hash, shojaie) . we have had midfiedlers in Kia and Karimi and Azizi and bagheri and Nekou who have performed at top level.. but look at our defense men.. We couldn't even think about a European team taking a defense man from us. Our best being Kaabi who was tossed back from a second league team in matter of months.. (and he wasn't even a CB)..

So, we need our coaches to get together and do something about this, from the base up!!

[Doctor DOOM]

When we were kids playing on the streets of the neighborhood, I remember every time we wanted to make a team the guys that weren't that good were always sent back to play, well, as "backs". and since they weren't good at playing football or running, all they would have to do was "get rid of it", instead of playing it..

which is exactly what I've been saying for YEARS now, that the "natural style" of Iranian football is an offensive, attacking one.
and we shd have coaches whose style is aligned ALONG with our nature ... not OPPOSITE it.

... which was with branko, under whom we ended up falling in between the stools as we never really became a reliable, solid defensive team, and we forgot ( were alienated from) our natural attacking style also !!!

[Martin-Reza]

Well, everywhere in the world the bad ones play in defense and the worst in goal when kids play.

That doesn't make a "natural" style.

The problem with that in Iran though is that we don't have proper youth work, so what happens on the street is more decisive.

But this idea of "we are not good in defending, so we must play more offensively" needs to be quit.

Playing more offensively means more direct man-on-man duels in defense, it means defending near or even at the middle line, demanding fast defenders, who can also build up under pressure and with little space.

Unfortunately our current best defenders do not allow such an approach. Having a weak defense isn't simply something that can be overcome by running forward. It can only be overcome by somehow getting better defenders.

[Doctor DOOM]

the "nature" goes beyond the street football choices. it shows itself in youth football and from then on, in next levels.

I dont care if it is the attraction or fame or whatever that pushes our kids to lean towards attacking football, but the fact is our youth grow up with that attitude and it has become our football's nature.

take PP, our most POPULAR club. their general attitude and style has usually been an attacking football. which has been borne out of our true nature ... hence their popularity. and this is just one example among many that point towards this.

[BehzadB]

which is exactly what I've been saying for YEARS now, that the "natural style" of Iranian football is an offensive, attacking one.
and we shd have coaches whose style is aligned ALONG with our nature ... not OPPOSITE it.

but that won't fix the problem at hand.. When our CB's can't play football, our offense guts hurt a lot.. If our CB's know how to contribute to the "Build up" that means they have understood the game better and that in turn helps them with their defensive duties.. it's no wonder why Golmohamadi, Khakpour, (even side backs like zarincheh, minavand) were some of our best defense men in our recent past.. they were all very good (relative to the others) at "build up"

to say "since we don't have good backs, let's play offense" is like rapping a bandage over a broken leg.

[Doctor DOOM]

No, I dont say lets play offensive football becoz we have suspect defenders.
I say lets play offensive football coz that comes more naturally to us, we are a bit more proficient in forward moves than defensive ones AND becoz we have a suspect defense, an offensive game tends to prevent the opponents' wingbacks or other players to join in their attack and apply that extra pressure on our suspect defense.

and yes, I must admit I follow the basic philosophy of "score more than you get scored on".


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the broken leg ( bad defendrs ) can be attended too in the meantime anyway.
no need to leave it alone. but that shdnt change ur basic approach to the game which shd be aligned with ur nature and basic attitude.