Iranian (Zob-Ahan) mentality in key games

[Doctor DOOM]

ZZ's last 2 games have been against two teams that have no hope to achieve anything, and teams that are inferior to ZZ tactically ans technically (peykan and wahda).

but the result of these two games eventually hurt ZZ.
1- with their draw against peykan, they lost 2 points that would have brought them within 1 win's distance from league leaders sepahan and with 4 games left anything could happen and they would have had a very good chance of catching up to sepahan for the championship.
but they lost focus and concentration in dying minutes and conceded!

2- they also gave away an easy game to uae with their nonchalant, careless attitude and game plan they lost the game they could have won if they maintained their drive and thirst seen in their previous games.
did their upcoming ss game have a bearing? maybe. but what's more important?

so clearly ebrahimzadeh needs to work with his lads to get over this easy attitude and put the hunger and drive in them. coz next round, it's not going to give them much room for mistakes.


****

but this is seen in other iranian teams as well. whenever they play against weaker (on paper) teams, they somehow step into the field at 50% strength as if half of their minds is still sitting at home, resting!

zz's loss to wahda, TM's trip to uae, the return trip of uae to iran, .... etc etc only show how we tend to underestimate the opponents, who btw, due to the arab-iranian issues, are even MORE motivated to make their point!

when are we going to be mentally prepared for this?

[maij]

Doc.

While I agree on your analysis , I fear that coaches in general , sometimes have limited influence on their team performance at crucial stages of a match. Even the greatest of them seem to be helpless at some stage of important games. Ferguson's failure against Bayern and hapless Wenger against Barcelona are two good recent examples.

That is why it important to stress your other point much more than coaching affect and that is "Professional attitude and commitment" by players. who at the end of the day , make the team lose or win.

[Martin-Reza]

I must say I see some kind of general problem here. Just like TM having been the only team in WCQ final round to actually lose points to UAE, this actually repeats itself for some Iranian teams in ACL.

While they do good against strong sides like Bunyodkor, they suddenly have a huge problem against some batty boys.

It seems we need opponents who come forward a bit and grant us space. With teams who play very defensively and who are not real pushovers like Singapore, we start to struggle.

The reasons for that are quite obvious I think. Our football is not really sparked by fast decision making, quick combinations, precise deliveries and effective finishing. So with little space there is little Iranian players can do, apart from some nice dribblings, crosses and long balls from anywhere and back or square balls.

[Hajagha]

It's not only Iranian problem, have you followed Arsenal and Liverpool this season?

[Martin-Reza]

Surely it isn't solely an Iranian phenomenon. But I think our players are generally problematic in that aspect, so any team having many Iranian players on the squad, has a problem in that regard.

[shayan20]

^
Agreed. I think we're expecting too much from Zobahan, who clearly don't have the same depth of squad as Sepahan. The stoppage time equalizer of Peykan crushed their hopes of league and lowered their confidence so maybe that played a part as well.

[Doctor DOOM]

mes defeats one of asia's giants 3-1 a week after they played like sh1t against the group's weakest team and lost.

zob defeats one of the world's top coaches twice in one week, and then lose to a crappy club from uae

today, sepahan loses to another crappy uae team and gets eliminated (although 80% of their elimination can be blamed on toure ans ridha ) when all they needed was just a single point!

now, the question is will marfavi and ebrahimzadeh "take it easy" after our recent losses due to under-estimating the opponents?

when will we stop underestimating opponents?
when will we learn football is 90 minutes and not 60-70 or 80 min's?

[Martin-Reza]

I again repeat it's not a matter of concentration but a matter of dominating a game and winning it. It is much easier to react, defend deep and counter than to dominate a game, put the opponent under pressure and defend high, where any mistake can be punished.

[Doctor DOOM]

I again repeat it's not a matter of concentration but a matter of dominating a game and winning it. It is much easier to react, defend deep and counter than to dominate a game, put the opponent under pressure and defend high, where any mistake can be punished.

sounds logical.
but is it for iranian football?
we cant defend deep, simply becoz we dont have great defenders. a look at sepahan, that has the best of Iran's defensive roster (GK included) in there and still give away silly, crappy goals.
rahmati, hosseini, aghili, bengar, and hajsafi ARE TEAM MELLI's players and they just gave away 2 unnecessary goals.
(btw, having more number of def mids added to them also has NOT helped the cause and we still leak silly goals)
so can Iran rely on their defenders?


traditionally our midfield is our strength and our tactics must be based on our strength.

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

but speaking of defending deep and countering, I think if Mes is to go anywhere, it is with such tactics.
not that they have reliable defenders. but they have NO CHOICE but this.

what they can rely on is the pace of their attacking players to be very effective in transitions and conducting very quick counterattacks (our TM is not as quick and reliable in counters though!!!).
Mes, given what they have, may actually wish to be under-estimated and attacked freely (also becoz they're not well known and a small player in asia), coz that's the only way they can do some damage. they meet alshabab (if I'm not mistaken) and if they can hold onto a draw at saudi, who knows what they can do back at home.

[Martin-Reza]

I disagree on a fundamental issue here. You don't need great defenders to defend deep. You need great defenders to defend high, where any mistake, lack of speed or lack of coordination will probably result in a goal.

When defending deep, there are always many legs around to still block or disturb. Throughballs are barely possible too for example.

However, I think today's results again undermined this theory.

[Amin_]

I have barely seen any Iranian side defend high. It doesn't matter whether we're playing the best team in the world or the weakest (hence "dominating"), our defenders usually remain quite far into our own half. Just look at our defenders when they're "building up" an attack from the back. One of the CB's always moves 10-20 meters backwards waiting for the ball to be passed to him and remains there when he's passed it again (or I should say rather shot it blindly forwards lol). I never understood this.

The only team that did it to some extent was Pas during Denizli's era.