What to expect from the Qatar tourney?

[Martin-Reza]

So the tournament in Qatar is coming up. We now know the roster and the schedule:

Goalkeepers: Mehdi Rahmati, Vahid Talebloo, Sousha Makani
Defenders: Hadi Aghili, Jalal Hosseini, Sepehr Heydari, Mohammad Nosrati, Hossein Kaebi, Khosro Heydari, Majid Gholamnejad, Hashem Beikzadeh
Midfielders: Andranik Teymourian, Pejman Nouri, Ferydoon Zandi, Moharram Navidkia, Mohammad Nouri, Mehrzad Madanchi, Ehsan Hajsafi, Amir-Hossein Feshangchi, Milad Zeniedpour
Strikers: Mohammad-Reza Khalatbari, Karim Ansarifard, Mohsen Khalili, Milad Meydavoodi, Gholamreza Rezaei

Dec. 28: Qatar - Iran
Dec. 30: Iran - Mali
Jan. 02: Iran - North Korea

On January 6 of course, mighty Singapore will be waiting.

What do you hope for and what do you expect from the games?

I think we will see rather poor games with little obvious experiments. Mostly the same players will play, although some rotation has got to take place, considering that we have 4 games within 11 days.

I think the only win we'll see will be in Singapore afterwards.

[maij]

I don't have much expectation or even hope of Team Melli doing the honors in this tournament. I am however excited by the inclusion of some players and is the sign of good omen.

My fear is Singapore. Their win against Jordan and Thailand just frightens the hell out of me. It is not a joke ...


Look at our status and how low we are ....... Khodaya ...now we are trembling against the likes of Singapore and Jordan !!!!!!! Laanat....

[Doctor DOOM]

on the whole, I think in reality what martin predicted will pretty much happen!

personally, results arent a priority for me.
what's more important, especially since these are friendlies, the QUALITY OF FOOTBALL displayed.
my wish-list:
if we show a good offensive game and dont go in like a scared little pus$ycat,
if we show variation in tactics and formations,
if we show a little teamwork,
with an eye on the future,
would love to see a maydavoodi - ansarifard strike line up
then I'd be satisfied.

I'd love beating nkorea, btw.
that's a personal wish, though

[Martin-Reza]

^ Without wanting to repeat our old discussions, why is a good offensive game so much rated higher than a good defensive game by you?

I wanna see both and to be honest both departments are currently dissatisfying.

In addition, when Khalatbari, Shojaei and Madanchi can't create enough chances for Ansarifard, how shall Khalatbari and Madanchi alone be able to create more chances then? It's always a tradeoff and more strikers mean less creativity.

We have problems everywhere at the moment, and the suggestions of more offense or more strikers are only moving the problems around the field, not solving them.

[St_Mark]

I Hope for success but no expectation from Ghotbi's team.

for this Tour :


≥ 7 = success
= 6 = good
< 6 = Failure

[Doctor DOOM]

^ Without wanting to repeat our old discussions, why is a good offensive game so much rated higher than a good defensive game by you?

I wanna see both and to be honest both departments are currently dissatisfying.

In addition, when Khalatbari, Shojaei and Madanchi can't create enough chances for Ansarifard, how shall Khalatbari and Madanchi alone be able to create more chances then? It's always a tradeoff and more strikers mean less creativity.

We have problems everywhere at the moment, and the suggestions of more offense or more strikers are only moving the problems around the field, not solving them.

well, as you said, we've gone over this a gazillion times.
a team shd be balanced, no doubt . and nobody wants an imbalanced team with only offensive tactics and no defense. or vice versa.

to put it simply:
a good offensive game means more WINS, while a good defensive game means less LOSSES.

and this is very pertinent to our TM ( during the WCQ's especially when WINS were needed to dig us out of the whole. not draws, which we got the most !!! ), and I'd have traded one of those draws with a win, rather than changing the loss to ksa with a draw. lack of WINS prevented us from qualifying.


but if you give me a team like barcelona, my focus would be more on its defense and defensive measures, coz that's where they were vulnerable (until they got guys like pique, toure, Abidal, ... )

[St_Mark]

So the tournament in Qatar is coming up. We now know the roster and the schedule:

Goalkeepers: Mehdi Rahmati, Vahid Talebloo, Sousha Makani
Defenders: Hadi Aghili, Jalal Hosseini, Sepehr Heydari, Mohammad Nosrati, Hossein Kaebi, Khosro Heydari, Majid Gholamnejad, Hashem Beikzadeh
Midfielders: Andranik Teymourian, Pejman Nouri, Ferydoon Zandi, Moharram Navidkia, Mohammad Nouri, Mehrzad Madanchi, Ehsan Hajsafi, Amir-Hossein Feshangchi, Milad Zeniedpour
Strikers: Mohammad-Reza Khalatbari, Karim Ansarifard, Mohsen Khalili, Milad Meydavoodi, Gholamreza Rezaei

Dec. 27: Iran - North Korea
Dec. 29: Iran - Mali
Jan. 02: Qatar - Iran

On January 6 of course, mighty Singapore will be waiting.

What do you hope for and what do you expect from the games?

I think we will see rather poor games with little obvious experiments. Mostly the same players will play, although some rotation has got to take place, considering that we have 4 games within 11 days.

I think the only win we'll see will be in Singapore afterwards.

Dec. 28: Qatar-Iran
Dec. 30: Iran - Mali
Jan. 02: Iran-North Korea
Jan. 06: Singapore-Iran

From list of 25, Navidkia, Gholamnejad did not go to Qatar and apparently Ando only may be available for last game.
Leaving aside report of injury to Taleblu, Ghotbi has about 22 (two teams) players.

Ghotbi will rotate players in order to test newcomers, reduce chance of injuries to starters, and not over exhausting starting players in important game against Singapore.
Rotating player is definite but how he does it not so certain.

More likely he keeps basic structure (few fixed players) and for each game rotates and substitutes others and ultimately uses all 22 players during 3 first games.
As a result of this time constraint TM will play with 3 different starters and substitutes. Strange as it may look it is consistent with his previous games.

If Qatar tournament is not important for Ghotbi, there is other alternative strategy to avoid risk of injuries and not to play in 4 games in 10 days.
One example:
Ghotbi can
1-use B team for first (Dec. 28) and last games (Jan. 2) and only use starting players as sub if necessary.
2- Use starting 11 against Mali (Dec. 30).
In doing so, all players get chance, it reduce risk of injury to key players and TM starters will have one good game against Mali and more resting time for Singapore.
I doubt Ghotbi will consider that.
A note in Margin.
By selecting Nkia without consulting with him or his club Ghotbi made a mistake otherwise he could have an additional player to help and test.

[Doctor DOOM]

I wasnt aware of the time-line and thought we'd have more than a week in between the tourney and singapore game. seems I was wrong.

with 4 days between these games (that will push the squad physically) and the singapore game (inclusive of the travel), I'm seriously questioning the sanity of agreeing to this tourney.

and it has come to this only becoz we did the ame mistake before the jordan game by pushing the squad mere days before that game. and we know how that dast-e gol turned out!

[TrueBlue]

I expect the following:

1- Mind blowing new player arrangements and tactics are revealed
2- 3 losses
3- 3 I-would-want-to-take-a-gun-and-blow-my-brains-out excuses presented by our esteemed coach for the above mentioned 3 losses
4- Harj-o-marj and ko$ giji for the players (hey, we have a new set of eleven and arrangement every game!, take that Jordan and Singapore and... up yours)
5- Damn those chartered flights (oops we dont have them... yeah, lets focus on that even more after the tourney)
6- we lost three matches? ooooh! we didnt have Neku and Masoud!!! Thats why!!! I am a genius (Professor Ghotbi will utter those words and smirk!)

Now am I being pessimistic, realistic or a clown?

[persianallstars]

I wasnt aware of the time-line and thought we'd have more than a week in between the tourney and singapore game. seems I was wrong.

with 4 days between these games (that will push the squad physically) and the singapore game (inclusive of the travel), I'm seriously questioning the sanity of agreeing to this tourney.

and it has come to this only becoz we did the ame mistake before the jordan game by pushing the squad mere days before that game. and we know how that dast-e gol turned out!

exactly, I don't get it why TM has to play so many friendlies before a "crucial" qualifier e.g. vs Singapore, they're going to be exhausted

[TrueBlue]

well well well, 1st loss, 2 more to go! just beautiful. And mind you, Qatar is the weakest of the three. My predictions are all coming true! woohoo

[faraz]

I hope the Qatar loss is not taken seriously...couple of missed chances, a bad mistake from an experienced defender and we lose.

Big deal - I'd rather Kaabi makes these mistakes now rather than later.

[maij]

I hope the Qatar loss is not taken seriously...couple of missed chances, a bad mistake from an experienced defender and we lose.

Big deal - I'd rather Kaabi makes these mistakes now rather than later.

If I said that I don't care if Team Melli loses all the 3 matches , I would be the biggest lier on the face of this planet......Of course I care , the pride in me simply cannot accept mediocrity and embaressment, however , if that means that we pep Singapore and Thailand for the Asian Cup , then be it....after that we can focus on getting a real coach

[St_Mark]

As expected and I suggested earlier , best way to deal with problem of 4 games in 10 day is to play like two different teams. Finally Ghotbi realized that and he will start a new team against Mali.
Unfortunately his plan is not complete. He should have played his A team against Mali and rest them against North Korea 4 days before Singapore game, but still is better than alternative.

He should have thought about this earlier and practice such strategy so reserve players at least had one session of practice as a team together. This new 11, has not played and exercised together ( they more likely to play out of position) as a team before and it will take a miracle for them to be in good harmony.
Good luck, games are full of surprises .

قطبی با بیان اینکه تیم ملی در تورنمنت قطر برای بازی برگشت مقابل سنگاپور آماده می شود و آن بازی برای ما اهمیت بیشتری دارد، اظهار داشت:
ما در تلاشیم تا بهترین و آماده ترین نفرات را برای بازی با سنگاپور شناسایی کنیم و این بازی ها می تواند بازیکنان را در شرایط ایده آل مسابقه برای دیدار با سنگاپور قرار دهد.
وی اضافه کرد: برای بازی با مالی به احتمال زیاد هر 11 بازیکنی که مقابل قطر به میدان رفتند تغییر خواهند کرد و در نظر داریم این فرصت را به سایر نفرات بدهیم تا قابلیتهای فنی خود را بروز دهند ضمن اینکه به بازیکنانی که مقابل قطر بازی کردند استراحت بدهیم.

تيم ملي امروز ساعت 16:30 احتمالا با تركيب زير به مصاف مالي مي رود:

وحيد طالب لو،
فريدون زندي، محمد نصرتي، سپهر حيدري، خسرو حيدري، .،
اميرحسين فشنگچي، آندرانيك تيموريان
،كريم انصاري فرد، مهرزاد معدنچي، غلامرضا رضايي و
محسن خليلي

[Martin-Reza]

^ I have my doubts about this lineup, I don't think he will risk to 100% rotate against the possibly strongest team in the tournament, now that he lost the first game.

At least the tactical formation is plain wrong.

If those players would start, it would rather be sth like

-------------------Talebloo-------------------
K.Heydari--S.Heidari--Nosrati--Feshangchi
-------------Teymourian---------------------
-----------------------Zandi------------------
Rezaei-----------Ansarifard--------Madanchi
-------------------Khalili-----------------------