tid bits about Indonesia game and ...

[Doctor DOOM]

... and an inkling or insight into ghotbi's strategy.

1- With this much emphasis ( and rightfully so ) on crosses, and seeing the selected players, I think we desperately need VH in form to meet these crosses.
Otherwise relying on inconsistent borhani for heading is not going to be very productive
and by the looks of it, VH is the ONLY striker with reputable heading ability !!!


2- Why the insistence on crossing to the FAR post? Almost 95% of crosses were “aimed” at the far post, while some ending way beyond!
Why not mix it up and send some to the NEAR post. If for nothing else, but to make ur crosses unpredictable ?

3- I really enjoyed the constant overlapping of our flank players and how they used the width. It was quite satisfying. Especially the kaabi-haydari combo that was very successful in their routine.

4- what happened to “shooting” ?
did they forget to shoot?
The ONLY shots we had went in ( zandi’s rather 2 weak ones).
I’d imagine having kazemi, ashoubi and zandi … would mean at least 7-8 shots per half!
I really think we need to work on our shots and make sure the players don’t forget to shoot.


5- and as mentioned in the other thread, using a predominantly quick player as fullback, rather than a player who defends better seems sensible.
since we expect the NKoreans who rely on their quick counters and have adopted a counterattcking strategy as their mainstay, would be more comfortable to sit back and defend and look for holes in our flanks and defense, ... and given that their players arent that technical or skillful w the ball to win 1-on-1's w defenders, .... using someone who can keep up with their pace is more of a priority than the player's defensive ability.

[yashar_fasihnia]

1)the first thing that came to my mind was, why was ghotbi using 3 DMs in the middle of the field?? ando has no creativity and to play him behind borhani was useless which we saw in first half. second half, he pulled out kazemi, moved ando next to ashoubi, moved zandi to the middle and played khalatbari on the side.
and we saw the result in the second half. i dont know wat he was thinking but im happy he made the necessary changes and i hope he continues with this.
only that, i think kazemi played a flawless first half game and ashoubi should have been pulled out, but ghotbi seems to believe in ashoubi.

2)even in perspolis, ghotbi's teams always relied on the 2 flanks.
im glad khosro heydari played as RM like i kept suggesting and not RB. he was very useful there with his attacks and kaebi's high speed and stamina helped the team perform the overlaps much better.
however, as mentioned already, borhani wont be that productive upfront all alone among 4 bigger defenders(the koreans and the emaratis are all bigger defenders than this U-23 indonesian team). hashemian or khalili will definitely be needed with all these crosses.

3)i dont know why ghotbi switched aghili and hosseini's positions. i just hope it wont cost us, cos in a 4 back, the coordination between 4 defenders and GK is highly important, and by switching around positions, we are disrupting this harmony and sazmandehy which had developed among our defenders.

4)borhani once again showed why he deserves to be benched.
he reapetedly missed chances from 2 meters infront of goal. i didnt find his goal impressive at all, because a better defender would have forced him to lose the ball by pressurizing him and any semi decent GK wouldnt just stand there but rather get close to him and tighten his angle.

his one touch pass to zandi which resulted in a goal was constructive, but that wasnt anything spectacular either. it was just a good one tough pass.

in my opinion, at the moment, hashemian should definitely be our first option and khalili inspite of just returning from injury is still better than him. khalili is atleast calm, composed and acts matured infront of the goal unlike this guy.

5)i also didnt like ashoubi's corner kicks and crosses. they were way too high.
but probably with the arrival of mahdavikia, ashoubi wont take them anymore.

6)overall, we played U-23 indonesia team which isnt anything to brag about but a good scoreline is always morale boosting. the team also in my opinion didnt do anything spectacular. we are still very slow in transition, lots of aimless passes and crosses, no long range shots at goal and opponent to weak to test us, but still, it was ghotbi's first game and its not right to make much judgement.
i personally think we wont be very different under him than we were under daei, so, we have to hope that the players individual brilliance carry us to the worldcup and hopefully ghotbi's psychological efforts (mostly) on the team.

[Martin-Reza]

Just two comments yashar jan.

Kazemi was fine, but I was impressed by Ashoubi, so I wouldn't have taken him off for sure.

And also Borhani might waste a lot of chances, but thanks to his movement and positioning he also gets more chances than other strikers, so he kind of, at least partially, compensates his lacking killer instinct.

I prefer Hashemian, but Borhani still surely is one of the better options we have.

And at the overlapping thing from DD aziz: I agree it looked great in offense, but I am afraid we could be punished for that ultra-offensive approach by any half-decent team. I am not sure if we can afford to play with two such offensive minded fullbacks against DPR.

[yashar_fasihnia]

Just two comments yashar jan.

Kazemi was fine, but I was impressed by Ashoubi, so I wouldn't have taken him off for sure.

And also Borhani might waste a lot of chances, but thanks to his movement and positioning he also gets more chances than other strikers, so he kind of, at least partially, compensates his lacking killer instinct.

I prefer Hashemian, but Borhani still surely is one of the better options we have.

And at the overlapping thing from DD aziz: I agree it looked great in offense, but I am afraid we could be punished for that ultra-offensive approach by any half-decent team. I am not sure if we can afford to play with two such offensive minded fullbacks against DPR.

ashoubi was fine second half.
but wat i meant is, since the substitution was done in the first half itself, ando was played out of position and he is a european legionnaire, so pulling him out isnt justified.
its between kazemi and ashoubi to be pulled out and i say with full honesty that i think kazemi played better.
he didnt cause a single turnover when having the ball, all his short passes, his long passes and his change of game direction were accurate, and even his game without the ball was very good. he was repeatedly seen infront of goal during attacks, and infront of our goal during defense (not many times but the few times the ball actually reached our defense line and/or rahmati).
also, he regularly did approach the defenders, took the ball and distributed it well.

ashoubi wasnt bad either (well, noone was really bad in first half cos the opponent was too weak), but i think kazemi had a better performance than ashoubi in first half. ashoubi was neither as active as kazemi was, nor was his passing accuracy as good as kazemi.

but second half, with khalatbari coming in and one DM reduced, the whole teams performance improved, including ashoubi. he did quite well actually and i think he did even better than teymourian in second half.

as for borhani, although his movements and positioning creates chances for us, but also we should remember that these chances that he created were again against weak defenders and opponents. against korea, he wont be able to create so many chances for himself with his movements, and over there, he must finish in 2 or 3 chances that he gets. his inability to control himself infront of the goal is really wat i dont like and the fact that ghotbi's teams hugely rely on the 2 flanks and crosses, makes me think hashemian and khalili will be more effective upfront.
and like i said, i would only rate borhani as 3rd option, behind these 2.

these are my views on this game

[Martin-Reza]

Well, Ashoubi seemingly had the slightly more defensive role, so of course Kazemi popped up upfront more often.

Anyway, that Kazemi was subbed out doesn't mean he was bad. Maybe exactly the opposite, when you look at who else got subbed out at halftime.

[Doctor DOOM]

our strikers shd be expressly told scoring a spectacular goal is the same as simple tap-ins.

both borhani and khalatbari went for the spectacular whilst they could have done a far better job of opting for a simple shot or a more accurate placement, rather than the thunder-n-lightning missile-firing they tried !!!
and this is seen in many other strikers like akbarpoor, ... .

in fact, the ONLY striker with enough intelligence to comprehend this simple fact is Khalili, who's shown beside being a good opportunist and quick-firing shots, he understands he doesnt have to make a hole in the net with his shots.

I really hope he's in form for the big game

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

not having some of the more experienced players in the camp convinced me not to comment on the player selection for midfield especially.

with players like karimi, mobaali, kia, madanchi, kazemian, ... joining the camp, I'm sure we'll not see this 3 def-mids formation anytime soon

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

I wont rate any players especially those in the def mid and defenders & GK's, coz they werent pushed.

the only ones I would rate are the strikers and attacking mids who did an OK job.
borhani was his usual self with repeated missing of chances.
khalatbari was good in ijecting urgency and pace into the team, but needs to work on his intelligence and shot selection.
zandi was slow as usual.
ando tried to be the playmaker ... and predictably fell quite flat

and yes, the flank combos did well.
but I doubt kaabi will be able to defend and will have his usual problems and I still prefer haydari as our RB with kia in front of him.


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btw, that idiot mirzaei said Talebi can play as a striker also.
is that true?
he looks quite muscular and well built. if he CAN, then I wouldnt mind using him as a physical holding striker and use his height advantage in heading.

anyone knows more about this chap?

[yashar_fasihnia]

Well, Ashoubi seemingly had the slightly more defensive role, so of course Kazemi popped up upfront more often.

Anyway, that Kazemi was subbed out doesn't mean he was bad. Maybe exactly the opposite, when you look at who else got subbed out at halftime.

yea, i thought about that as well, but then, every other starter was there in the game and with no threat at all from south korea, ghotbi maybe wanted to give some play time to talebloo. so i highly doubt it.

anyways, it doenst matter cos i know ashoubi is a good player and was very influential in helping ghotbi win the IPL with perspolis and im sure has been influential in helping mes finish 3rd in IPL this season. so in a way its good for ashoubi to play these friendly games all 90 minutes to get coordinated with the rest of the team and get international experience as well.
wat i said was specific to this game, that kazemi was one of the better players of first half in my opinion and didnt deserve to be subbed out.