Can we fix these?

[Kavian]

There are certain habits, behaviour, and/or style of play about Iranian players and our teams that are really mind boggling and surprising that despite of all these good coaches and analysts no body seem to recognize them and do something about them! Interestingly most of them can be fixed with simple solutions which in my opinion it can happen in a classroom and not on the field.

One that really bugs me the most, is when an opposing player has the possession of the ball, our players have this urge to rush in such erratic way (heroic in their own minds perhaps) to get the ball back. Often you see 2,3 and sometime 4 players leaving their own zones to surround the opposing player, and committing all kinds of unnecessary actions like tackles, pushing and shoving, or even amateurish stuff that one does in street football.

9 out of 10, I have witnessed that a simple pass by the opposite player make the rushing players (often 4 of them) look like bunch of clowns! When that happens, we have 4 empty zones, that gives the opposite side lots of room to move around. Our players then try to rush back again demonstrating another heroic action to stop the other side. Fouls are committed and most often the whole organization and synergy of the team is lost in the process. You get a team with a good portion of its players out of position.

The other one is passing and the position of the ball in relation to the game plan. One of the reasons we can never put more than 2-3 accurate passes together, is because most of our players play out of their zone all the time. Our players move around too much instead of making the ball to do the running for them. If you notice, almost all of our players run with the ball more than they are supposed to, often dribbling and moving towards own player and into zones unmatched with their role, style or skill level. Then they stop and pause to find a player to pass the ball to. When the ball is finally passed (if it is passed), the reason for passing is often nothing more than passing the responsibility than placing the ball where it is supposed to be in relation to the game plan and strategy.

Another one is this sliding tackle phenomenon that has hit our football. Where it came from I have no idea! But Iranian players think sliding tackle is a heroic action. I wish we could have just ban this plain stupid action that is causing the rhythm of the game to be off and sometime gives out too many set pieces to the other side.

One more but certainly not the last one is the lack of mental strength, which in reality is very much related to physical fitness. When our players run out of stamina (usually around minute 65 or 70), their minds just shuts off and performance drops to a very low level. Surviving the last 20 minutes of every important game in our football is becoming a dramatic story on its own. I am surprised we don’t have too many heart attacks among the fans. Or may be the stats are not published. But seriously this is one important issue to be addressed. I quite smoking long time ago but the last 20 minutes of every game make me go and buy a pack!!

And of course there are more … which some of you can add!

Cheero!

[Martin-Reza]

Some good observations, some of those habits could be well observed against Brazil again.

[zereshk-ali]

Excellent post.

I will add:

Ball retention (as mentioned in my previous post as part of the reason that we run out of steam in last quarter of the game). Most of our players seem not to realise sometimes that you need to go backwards or sideways to go forwards.

Hold up play. We don't have anyone at the moment who can keep the ball up front long enough to allow midfield players and full backs to join the attack. This can either be a strong, intelligent striker or a gifted attacking midfielder.

Movement off the ball. It was frustrating the number of times today I saw a midfielder who has just won the ball with an opportunity for a swift counter attack but no variation in movement around him. It seems that they are not coached that players around the man in possession need to make varying runs (i.e. Nekounam to move for square pass option and Teymourian/Shojaei to make forward run for through pass). I think the lack of variety in style to our central midfield players adds to this problem.

Finally, I agree generally your observations on rushing towards the ball. Howver, I must add that the effectiveness of this has improved under Ghotbi i.e. they press more as a team now than they did before when 2/3 players would chase and others would not, creating the space for the simple through pass.

[zzgloo]

Here are my additions :
.................................................. ....................................

1- Under thrown passes.
.....as passes are too slow, and short for the destination,and recievers have to wait or come back toward the ball to get them.........passers must pass in higher speed,and ahead of the receiver,and give indication to reciever as what direction he needs to run toward.
.................................................. .........................................

2-Dribbling without dribbling.
standing with ball,and have the opposing player in front of you....the player with the ball, does not neccessarly need to dribble ....as he simply , either by a pretending to dribble keep him in distance, or just simply go around himslf with the ball.....as by doing so, the situation will change, and more passing opportunities may arise.
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3-Not being afriad of attacking in the middle.
Almost all of our midfilders and forwards, are afraid of taking the ball down in the middle through the center of the BOX.....and prefer to pass the ball to the sides and expect a cross.
.................................................. ..................................................

4-Learning the curve balls.
We have yet to have a player who understands what a curve ball ( or CUT ) can do.....the real reason to shoot with CUT, mostly with inside of the foot, is not to make the ball go with curve, nor is it because of bypassing a defender...the real reason for " CUTS ", is to manipulate the accurecy of the shot.
.................................................. .................................................

5- Unerstandings about the " Moche Paa " .
Our players, mostly forwars and midfilders, do not understand the importance of angle and positioning of " Moch e paa ",in accurecy of the shot.
.................................................. .................................................. ...

6- Shoot with speed,not with streangth.
Players also lack understanding , in speed of thier lower leg before it hits the ball...as it is more important than the streangth of thier upper-leg.
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.

[Babak agha]

There are certain habits, behaviour, and/or style of play about Iranian players and our teams that are really mind boggling and surprising that despite of all these good coaches and analysts no body seem to recognize them and do something about them! Interestingly most of them can be fixed with simple solutions which in my opinion it can happen in a classroom and not on the field.
One that really bugs me the most, is when an opposing player has the possession of the ball, our players have this urge to rush in such erratic way (heroic in their own minds perhaps) to get the ball back. Often you see 2,3 and sometime 4 players leaving their own zones to surround the opposing player, and committing all kinds of unnecessary actions like tackles, pushing and shoving, or even amateurish stuff that one does in street football.
9 out of 10, I have witnessed that a simple pass by the opposite player make the rushing players (often 4 of them) look like bunch of clowns! When that happens, we have 4 empty zones, that gives the opposite side lots of room to move around. Our players then try to rush back again demonstrating another heroic action to stop the other side. Fouls are committed and most often the whole organization and synergy of the team is lost in the process. You get a team with a good portion of its players out of position.
The other one is passing and the position of the ball in relation to the game plan. One of the reasons we can never put more than 2-3 accurate passes together, is because most of our players play out of their zone all the time. Our players move around too much instead of making the ball to do the running for them. If you notice, almost all of our players run with the ball more than they are supposed to, often dribbling and moving towards own player and into zones unmatched with their role, style or skill level. Then they stop and pause to find a player to pass the ball to. When the ball is finally passed (if it is passed), the reason for passing is often nothing more than passing the responsibility than placing the ball where it is supposed to be in relation to the game plan and strategy.
Another one is this sliding tackle phenomenon that has hit our football. Where it came from I have no idea! But Iranian players think sliding tackle is a heroic action. I wish we could have just ban this plain stupid action that is causing the rhythm of the game to be off and sometime gives out too many set pieces to the other side.
One more but certainly not the last one is the lack of mental strength, which in reality is very much related to physical fitness. When our players run out of stamina (usually around minute 65 or 70), their minds just shuts off and performance drops to a very low level. Surviving the last 20 minutes of every important game in our football is becoming a dramatic story on its own. I am surprised we don’t have too many heart attacks among the fans. Or may be the stats are not published. But seriously this is one important issue to be addressed. I quite smoking long time ago but the last 20 minutes of every game make me go and buy a pack!!
And of course there are more … which some of you can add!
Cheero!

All of the stuff you mentioned (except for stamina of course) have one reason only: our players are slow in reading the game.

When you don't see where the ball/players is/should be going next, it will result in you being out of position, running too much, holding on the ball too long and trying to shove and tackle the players who have the ball since you were late.

This the reason why Holland committed all those fouls during the WC final (not because are were too slow in reading the game but because Xavi, Inesta, etc. are too fast in playing a game).

These phenomena are discussed regularly on football shows here in Holland (so it's not exclusive to Iranian players nor does it have to do anything with heroism). Almost every time they show a couple "sliding tackles", "running out of position" and "holding on the ball too long and passing it off to the wrong player" moments. 99 out of 100 reasons they give is the player being slow in reading the game, 1 out of 100 times they call the player mentally ill (usually for the tackels).