I cant say I’m happy we lost the game, but there is a silver lining to the loss that I hope would be an immeasurable experience for the coaching staff as well as the players that shd help them in the all important Olympic qualifiers.
If you watched the game you’d have noticed the two different OMID teams that played two different halves of the game. Aside from the few minutes of the first half at the end of which we scored our goal, the rest of that half saw a gutless, scared team that was just too young to know if you score a goal, especially that early in a game, you can not and shd not start pulling back and defending the goal. but that is exactly what we saw. We saw a team that thought it could defend its slim lead with a bunch of players who are hardly coordinated and on the day that some of the most famous stars of Iranians football were total ZEROES
If before the game I’d told you hosseini, rezaei, hajsafi and rahmati are going to be the WEAKEST players in the game for us, you all would have laughed. But that is what happened. These senior TM super-stars were the weakest players on the pitch. Hosseini with his brainless long lobs that consistently ended up with the Japanese, to rezaei who was losing the ball again and again and was like a headless chicken going round and round, to rahmati who was among the few to be blamed on both goals, to hajsafi who has been on a downward spiral for months and shd be thrown out of both omid and TM teams immediately until he gets his act together and starts using his head.
The other Omid team that we saw was the attacking, forceful and purposeful team that played the second half (aside from the few starting minutes of the 1st until they scored the goal). throughout the second half I was wondering why shd a team that can play this forceful and aggressive (relative to their age and limited experience), play like a scared, gutless bunch of fools in the first half! If Iran had maintained this level of aggressiveness I am sure we would have won the game.
I hope this precious experience is recognized by the coaching staff and they drill this into the youngsters to never ever take a single goal for granted and always play to their potential, instead of opting for the gutless, wimpy way they played in 1st half.
I’d like to add a couple of other points:
1- I hope now, shagholam recognizes how he missed the opportunity to use 3 under age players for these games, so for the ever-important Olympic qualifiers, he would have more youngsters to pick from.
2- We were also unlucky as six to a dozen refs would have allowed that offside incident, where ansarifard scored. Not to mention aliasgar’s chip that hit the post, and afshin’s late attempt.
3- In the first half, we kept on losing the second balls and the defended balls simply becoz there was about 2000 miles of space between our forward line and our midfield. And becoz of our moronic lobs, those balls headed away by the jap defense always fell to another Japanese player!!!
4- Of the U-23 players, I was impressed with afshin, mosalman and ansarifard. Aliasgar was overall ok in the tourney, but needs to cut down on his dribbling.
5- But I cant reiterate enough how miserable our TM superstars (rahmati, hosseini, hajsafi and rezaei) played which shd be a cause for worry not only for shagholam, but for our supposed head coach at TM, seyed ghotbi too.
6- I'm also very angry becoz I stayed up till 3 AM to watch this game where I suffered through a painful first half and a surprising but nervous second half!
If you watched the game you’d have noticed the two different OMID teams that played two different halves of the game. Aside from the few minutes of the first half at the end of which we scored our goal, the rest of that half saw a gutless, scared team that was just too young to know if you score a goal, especially that early in a game, you can not and shd not start pulling back and defending the goal. but that is exactly what we saw. We saw a team that thought it could defend its slim lead with a bunch of players who are hardly coordinated and on the day that some of the most famous stars of Iranians football were total ZEROES
If before the game I’d told you hosseini, rezaei, hajsafi and rahmati are going to be the WEAKEST players in the game for us, you all would have laughed. But that is what happened. These senior TM super-stars were the weakest players on the pitch. Hosseini with his brainless long lobs that consistently ended up with the Japanese, to rezaei who was losing the ball again and again and was like a headless chicken going round and round, to rahmati who was among the few to be blamed on both goals, to hajsafi who has been on a downward spiral for months and shd be thrown out of both omid and TM teams immediately until he gets his act together and starts using his head.
The other Omid team that we saw was the attacking, forceful and purposeful team that played the second half (aside from the few starting minutes of the 1st until they scored the goal). throughout the second half I was wondering why shd a team that can play this forceful and aggressive (relative to their age and limited experience), play like a scared, gutless bunch of fools in the first half! If Iran had maintained this level of aggressiveness I am sure we would have won the game.
I hope this precious experience is recognized by the coaching staff and they drill this into the youngsters to never ever take a single goal for granted and always play to their potential, instead of opting for the gutless, wimpy way they played in 1st half.
I’d like to add a couple of other points:
1- I hope now, shagholam recognizes how he missed the opportunity to use 3 under age players for these games, so for the ever-important Olympic qualifiers, he would have more youngsters to pick from.
2- We were also unlucky as six to a dozen refs would have allowed that offside incident, where ansarifard scored. Not to mention aliasgar’s chip that hit the post, and afshin’s late attempt.
3- In the first half, we kept on losing the second balls and the defended balls simply becoz there was about 2000 miles of space between our forward line and our midfield. And becoz of our moronic lobs, those balls headed away by the jap defense always fell to another Japanese player!!!
4- Of the U-23 players, I was impressed with afshin, mosalman and ansarifard. Aliasgar was overall ok in the tourney, but needs to cut down on his dribbling.
5- But I cant reiterate enough how miserable our TM superstars (rahmati, hosseini, hajsafi and rezaei) played which shd be a cause for worry not only for shagholam, but for our supposed head coach at TM, seyed ghotbi too.
6- I'm also very angry becoz I stayed up till 3 AM to watch this game where I suffered through a painful first half and a surprising but nervous second half!
Comment