China - Iran friendly

[Martin-Reza]

Blaming the lack of creativity on having two DMs is like blaming the existance of two centerbacks in the lineup for this shortcoming.

[zzgloo]

I disagree. 2nd half is the coach's half. Although judging by our 2nd half, NK Has nothing to worry about.

Secound half,is not the coach's half,on friendly games !.......
On friedly games, the first half, is tune-up of starters,..and secound half is the serach for the alternates !.........why els, we had 5 exchanges in the secound half ? how els, a coach eliminate some players,if they never given any chance ?

[KasraKhan]

Blaming the lack of creativity on having two DMs is like blaming the existance of two centerbacks in the lineup for this shortcoming.

I agree with Martin here.

I think for a very important away game, like this one, we need to lineup 2 DM's to give the team stability and add help to the defense. Also, the other 3 midfielders we will be using dont track back at all, so that is why there is sometimes a gaping hole in between our midfield and defensive line. We need the 2 DM's to do all of the dirty work for our 3 attacking minded midfield players.

In the 2nd half of the China friendly, Ghotbi used 2 forwards in Khalili and Borhani, reducing one of the DM's, and the team played noticeably worst.

This has to be the lineup Ghotbi fields:

Rahmati
Kaebi--Aghili--Hosseini--Hajsafi
-----Ashoubi---Ando-----
-Shojaei---Karimi---Khalatbari-
----------Hashemian--------

This will be one of the most dangerous and creative midfields TM has fielded in years. We have to start Khalatbari, he is simply too good not to start.

With that midfield, Vahid will be getting all type of service. Service that he has not got in the past few years playing for TM. It will be a tough decision not to start Kia, but this is football, we have to field the best 11, and Khalatbari/Shojaei are much better players than Kia currently is.

[Martin-Reza]

^ Very good post. The probably only open question is which 3 Ghotbi will chose for the positions behind Hashemian out of Mahdavikia, Karimi, Shojaei, Khalatbari and Zandi.

All 5 of them will make the 18-men-squad, I think Khalatbari might find himself on the bench as Ghotbi will be banking on experience beside Shojaei, who should be fixed, in case he is not too exhausted.

[kami_kakashi]

I think our football is hurting because we lost many good talents to UAE league and then crossed them off.

Kaebi, Karimi, Nekounam, Shojaei are examples of good Iranian talent who went to UAE but didn't get ignored and kept alive and saved from being a waste.

Unfortunatly (I don't know why but it could be personal issues or just attitude) players like Kazemian, Madanchi, Mobali, Majidi, Oladi, Meidavudi, Khatibi, etc... Went to UAE when they were at top of their game and then were ignored. not invited to TM (or invited but not used) has made them very stressed and nervous when finally they do get the chance.

Mobali, Kazemian and Nekounam can be used as case studies for the concept I am talking about:

Mobali:

Best player of the league with Foolad. Had some promising displays in TM. Stuff with Ali Daei happened and he was exiled to UAE league. He did great for couple of seasons but lost the motivation as he was not gonna see the TM anymore and could easily get away in UAE league with mediocre dsiplays.

results: wasted talent!... (Unless the thing with Esteghlal works out and he is given a chance to play for TM in AC qualification games but from TM and WCQ perspective he is done!)

Kazemian:

Great player. Regarded as Mahdavikia's replacement when the time comes. He actually had a crack at the UAE league before but unfortunately for him they brought him in to replace Karimi! big shoes to fill. Now he was smart back then and he came back to IPL and had a great season with PP. right there and then it was the time to harvest him as a TM player. Unfortunately"stuff" (which no point getting into) meant he should go back to UAE.

results: semi-wasted talent!... I say semi because the game against China had some moments of old Kazemian. He is fast and has vision and an eye on goal. One must be blind to not see his nerves as he has been left out of international play for so long. I say TM can still make use of him all we need is him scoring or setting up a goal in TM so his nerves will go away.


Nekounam:

I will keep it short for this guy. Went to UAE for nothing but to get international experience. Very disciplined. No personal beef with anyone. was saved from UAE by TM (a luxury other UAE based players didn't enjoy).

Results: Iran's golden boy

[Doctor DOOM]

sometimes I really think you guys either look at a piece of paper or look at some european club when you comment on this formation !!!

agha jan, WHAT STABILITY ?
where was this stability or reinforcement ? when china's YOUTH team dominated us in the midfield, passed the ball 10 times better than us and more to the point, captured the majority of the loose balls in the middle .... and yes, in presence of TWO def mids.

so when you add one def mid to the line, what are you trying to do?
( apart from desperately trying to look "modern", that is )
are you trying to win the midfield battle?
they didnt!

are you trying to build a solid block in front of ur defense?
they didnt!

so why on earth do u persist with this?

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

when you guys START watching TM games and stop using some european model as ur evidence, you'd observe we just DO NOT HAVE the kind of midfielders who can defend as well as playmake.
we dont.

so what we end up with is the player can either defend ( like ando, kazemi, ashoubi, rahmati, nekounam, ... ), or he can playmake like navidkia, shojaei, mobaali, karimi, jabbari ... .

we dont have a xavi in Iran.
so until the day we find a xavi, we're gonna make the same mistake of using IDENTICAL defensive players right next to each other , who more often than not get in each other's way and in the end, not only fail to reinforce our defensive line, but lose the middle of the park too !!

of all the def mids, only nekounam gets a "passing" grade in forward passing.
just a "passing" grade mind you. nothing that would solve our problems.
none of ando, rahmati, ashoubi, sadeghi, kazemi can try a correct, healthy forward, positive pass for 3 consecutive instances !!

===========

and as repeated before, the problem is not ONLY having 2 defenders in the middle. it is also "taking away a forward spot" also ... which puts us deeper into the crapola.

hala hey begin 4-2-3-1 is good.
yes, for milan perhaps.
not for Iran.
all of you come up with rhetorics. I'd like to see how any of you guys can defend such an atrocious display by our central midfield.
you cant.

neither can you do it for majority of our game when we tried 4-2-3-1.

so stop ur rhetorics and open ur eyes.
we dont have the right players and we're just spinning around ourselves , going nowhere with this formation.

[persianallstars]

although I believe that everyone here has the opportunity and the right to defend his own thoughts on formation etc. - you got a point.

I actually was not quit happy with a 4-2-3-1 with Neko and Ando as DM's. But I accepted it and well, I've been waiting for more than 3 years to see positive results.

Without Neko, I can't believe that this 4-2-3-1 will work. I have seen enough of low class players like Ashoubi, Madanchi etc....

Either TM plays with 2 CMs (Karimi, Andranik) in a classic 4-4-2 or Iran plays with one DM, one OM and one striker behind Hashemian.

Many guys will come up and say, what about our wings? Forget it, this system of thinking has failed enormously.

[Martin-Reza]

Dr Doom, your logic comes down to saying we don't have DMs who can defend and make the play and therefore we should forget about the defending and rather concentrate on the playmaking.

No coach would agree on that. First priority always is to stabilize the defense. And you need two holding midfielders or 1 DM and 2 CMs for that basically. If they are not strong enough to build up like Xavi, bad luck, but you can't simply ruin your defense for the sake of a slightly improved offense. Stop fantasizing and be realistic.

The 4-2-3-1 gives you
a) defensive stability
b) width in midfield
c) a central offensive playmaker position

Now that happens on cost of a second striker, which would be d).

You can only have 3 of those 4 things at once.

In comparison to the 4-2-3-1: the 4-4-2 diamond adds a second striker on cost of the width in midfield, the 4-4-2 flat adds a second striker on cost of the central offensive midfielder and the 4-3-3 adds two central midfielders on cost of one DM and the central offensive midfielder, which normally allows the wing players to be more offensive than those in the 4-2-3-1. The 4-3-2-1 has even more priority on defense as it adds an additional DM for the OM.

These are the fourback systems in today's football and none of them gives you two strikers, an OM, width in midfield and defensive stability at once. The only fixed thing all of those systems have in common though is the defensive stability you are demanding to be given up here.

[Doctor DOOM]

Dr Doom, your logic comes down to saying we don't have DMs who can defend and make the play and therefore we should forget about the defending and rather concentrate on the playmaking.

I had to read till here to know where u'r trying to take it.

who said "forget about defending" ? did u read that anywhere in my post?
so plz dont try to shift the focus elsewhere.

I said having TWO similarly defensive players in the center hasnt helped us a bit in making a reliable, solid defensive block and has actually hurt us going forward also!

lets not go far and examine our recent games where we tried this and NEVER GOT WHAT WE WANTED , which I assume would be having a solid defensive display:

against ksa, the saudis controlled the middle and exerted a lot of pressure on our defense. having 2 def mids never made any difference in seeing our defenders see less of the ball and fell less pressure.
the only difference in why all that pressure didnt realize into goals : RAHMATI ... NOT the defenders. Not having 2 def mids.


against uae, we were again outplayed ( even more, I dare say ) by the team that lost to EVERYONE at their home! they controlled the middle and exerted immense amount of pressure. and having two def mids never made a jot of difference in relieving this.
the only difference in why all that pressure didnt realize into goals : RAHMATI ... NOT the defenders. Not having 2 def mids.


against NKorea, having them in azadi and them being the visiting team, it was obvious they'd play a closed game with little forward pressure. so we were able to dictate a bit until we scored the second goal. what happened then? the koreans attacked and applied pressure and ... lo & behold, the battle in the middle was taken away from us and as we got closer to the end, they overcame us in that region and having two def mids never made any difference in this and apart from scoring a goal, they even came close to getting a couple more!
the only difference in why all that late pressure didnt realize into goals : RAHMATI ... NOT the defenders. Not having 2 def mids.


heh. against SOUTH korea, since these korean didnt have any fear of us, they attacked from the first half and overpowered us in the middle. they created truck-load of chances in front of our goal IN AZADI ! and having 2 def mids didnt mean jack sh*t as they attacked and got through each & every time, not only scoring their goal, but having at least another 4-5 100% opportunities ( while we had 1 throughout the game, btw !!!!!!!!! )
the only difference in why all that pressure didnt realize into goals : RAHMATI ... NOT the defenders. Not having 2 def mids.


next was ksa game in azadi where , again, as it was a home game, the visiting DEPLETED HALF of the picture.
the other half is by allocating an extra spot for a def mid that in the end DOES NOT CHANGE A THING FOR THE TEAM, we are sacrificing a crucial factor in our forward moves: playmaker.

we havent had a playmaker in a loooong time now and we can see how our forward moves are suffering and are disjointed, haphazzard and basically deficient. becoz a crucial element is missing.
someone who can CREATE an opportunity for the flank and forward players. no wonder our forwards have struggled to score. many times NOT becoz they are useless or inferior. BUT BECOZ they are not fed the right balls enough times!



and if we do use a slightly ( never the right players anyway ) creative player in the three, becoz of the moronic formation, we're still deficient up front , having a single forward.
and given our forwards' quality even a 3 year old little girl will acknowledge they dont have the ability to play in such a formation all by themselves. so I question a lot of those who actually defend this.

we always see our single player being man-handled & crowded by 2-3 defenders and effectively taken out of the game!! no wonder our strikers havent scored any goals. besides not being fed the balls enough times, even those scant few that come their way are handled with ease by his markers !!!!






in summary : therefore not only adding a player in the middle hasnt consolidated our defenses, it has caused even more problems in our offensive moves.

enough with this nonsensical insistence on what's on paper. high time we got REAL and looked at TM's games and then commenting.



so kindly dont waste my time with "no coach would .... " rhetoric, my freind.
that doesnt mean anything IN REAL WORLD.
At least not for IRANIAN football. that's on paper and that's for european teams.
what about TM?
dont tell me what I "should be seeing as per the rule of football or what's written in the tactical manual or ..." whatever crap that you guys keep referring to.
I WATCHthe team play and that's all the reference I need to see if something is helping the team or not. I dont give a damn about what's in some manual .

I dont think we can ask the saudis to "plz refrain from attacking us, coz according to my mommy's football rule books, having 2 def mids means greater defensive ability and stability. so all you saudi fellows. plz play by the book and dont attack. ok now?"

[Doctor DOOM]

I must add, all this is when the team's priority is to WIN a game.

by all means, when we play really strong teams or if all we need is a draw , then use 2 def mids or 3 or 4 ... who cares.
although even then I dont agree, but at least the priority to WIN is not there.

But right now, our priority shd not be "keep a clean sheet". ( plz, lets all understand the meaning of "priority" before commenting )
our priority is to WIN the damned game. so the focus shd be on our forward moves and offensive tactics more than defensive.

and plz refrain from inane and mindless remarks like "oh so lets forget defending, eh?" ok?

[Martin-Reza]

You talk about "real world" and yet promote we should forget the facts of the real world when in comes to tactics.

A system with 2 strikers, side midfielders/wingers and a central offensive playmaker DOES NOT EXIST in the real world.

It seems the reasons for that are beyond you. But that all coaches use 2-3 players in defensive/central midfield is something you cannot ignore.

And just a final note, having two DMs is not a magic thing which makes the opponent unable to create chances. I don't know how an adult can seriously argue that our defense was unstable with 2 DMs and therefore removing one of them would be positive.

[zzgloo]

Lets put the evident factors aside.....
.................................................. ............

Our priorities,now is not neccessarly to have good set up, but to have good set up,against NK !...for the next games , we will worry about later.
We did have the discussions, at the Branko's time, as how to play against ,defensive team, who defends with 10 defenders....and waits for counter-attacks...
Therefore, our strategy needs to be accordingly.....and the which three midfielders, ( martin wondered about ),or 2 DM set ups, or which DMs, are all should be according to our specific plan against a defensive minded NK, as well as our need to win the game !
.................................................. .........
Here are the reasons why we should concentrate on the midfield :

1- the game, should be fought in the center of the field, and not NK's half of the field, as other wise, it will serve thier counter-attacking style.

2- Our slower pace football compaire to NK, serves us better,to keep the ball in the midfield.

3-based on the game against China, we realized, the disconnection between our forwards,and our midfields.

4-Our streangth is as the midfield.

5-It helps our defense to have our midfield closer to our defensive line.

6-it pulls the NK players to come out of thier over defensive posture,and out of thier game plan.

[Doctor DOOM]

You talk about "real world" and yet promote we should forget the facts of the real world when in comes to tactics.

A system with 2 strikers, side midfielders/wingers and a central offensive playmaker DOES NOT EXIST in the real world.

so a 4 man midfield with 2 forward line does not exist!
lol.
ok.

and lets play this crazy game of urs , and say ok ... the above doesnt exist. does that or shd that mean we CANT make it also?
hmm .... let me push my brain and come up with a totally revolutionary and BRAND NEW formation with 4 mids and 2 strikers.
maybe I'll have 4 def's also, coz we'd need to defend too.
EUREKA! ... got it.
I'll call it the "peyman" formation. ... oh wait. it needs numbers, right?
so .... hmmm ... lets see. I'll call it 4-4-2 then...... AS CRAZY AND WEIRD IT MAY SOUND OR LOOK !

I know, I know ... it's totally CRAAAZZYYYY and out of this world, this 4-4-2.
but just becoz nobody uses it doesnt mean we cant start it, right?

afterall this 4-2-3-1 also wasnt created in 1930's was it?

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

It seems the reasons for that are beyond you. But that all coaches use 2-3 ..........

this ^ just answered me.
"coaches" !
again, with the manual references!


I gave you REAL WORLD, TM-match instances and ur reply is "grab manual to football. open page 342. read second para, line 4. ... " !!!!

very well.



and you cant understand how an adult can .... ?
well, read it again.
and this time, stick to what I write and dont make ur own words.
perhaps that would help clear matters a bit.







or maybe not!
afterall, one cant wake a man who "pretends" to be asleep !


btw, I also cant understand how an adult who claims to be a sprots journalist is just incapable of differentiating and assessing two players' roles and duties in the middle of the pitch!

[Doctor DOOM]

bahram jan, again I must say ON PAPER, our strength is in the midfield.

only ON PAPER, though.

when was the last time we saw exemplary quality display from our midfield in all departments ( meaning defense and offense and .... ) against half-decent opposition ( forget about equal or quality opponents even ! ) ?

I cant remember.

on paper, when we write down the "names" of these players, we come across great many talents, skills, techniques, ... and can visualize all these in our head.
but on the pitch, the first block to get past is choosing the right players for the right post at the right time & situation.

next block is arranging these names in the right manner based on their abilities and what we need from the match.

then, it's setting the right tasks and duties to each one.

we have failed in all 3 blocks.
no wonder. while we have great players, the WAY we use them is faulty!

we've done all sorts of mistakes:
putting a slow player against quick opposition.
putting a defensive minded player as a winger.
putting a central player in the flank.
totally ignoring the role of a playmaker in a team
putting an unfit player in the team
putting a defender as ur attacking mid ( this one really take the cake )
and so many more.

so yes, ON PAPER, we have a magnificent pool of midfield players and shd by all accounts have a tremendously strong midfield.
but in reality, our midfield has let us down on MORE OCCASIONS THAN WE'D LIKE TO REMEMBER!

many a goals have been due to lax midfielders failing to defend or mark their players ... WHILE WE HAVE NOT ONE, BUT TWO DM's in there !!!
many times they fail to shut down the flanks and surrender it ... mainly becoz we're using central players on the flanks and naturally, they drift to the center, leaving the touchline open.
many times we fail to make the slightest of headway forward, coz we havent used ANY player with slightest amount of creativity in the middle.

oh, I can go on & on about how we'll "dropped the ball" in our midfield!

[yashar_fasihnia]

2 things which seems to confuse some people here:

1)a play maker doesnt necessarily have to be a midfielder playing in the middle of the field.
a playmaker is referred to the player who usually carries the burden of the offensive moves. playmaker is different from an attacking midfielder.
a playmaker can play on the sides as well.
some people confuse the "play maker" with the attacking midfielder, which doesnt necessarily have to be the case!
also, a team may have more than 1 playmaker as well.
bayern is a good example. they have 2 playmakers, ribery and schweinsteiger, both play on the sides and are originally wingers.

a play maker may be a DM, may be an AM, maybe an RM/LM/RW/LW or may even be the supporting striker, playing behind the main striker!

in all these TM games, we have had playmakers.
karimi, shojaei, navidkia, jabbari, zandi have been our play makers in recent years in TM.

2)if using 5 midfielders still cant help us in controlling the midfield, how IN THE HELL WILL 4 MIDFIELDERS HELP US ANY BETTER AGAINST THE OPPONENTS?
and we have to sacrifice this FOR THE USELESS FORWARDS THAT WE HAVE??
as it is, with 2 DMs, our defense is still not very stable, our midfield still has problems containing the opponent, so all of a sudden, we should remove one of the DM, to make our defense even more vulnerable, and the burden on RAHMATI even more???
with such a weak defense, a slow tempoed midfield and a bunch of useless forwards, playing a 2 DM midfield is not a bad option.