What If .....

[Doctor DOOM]

There are games against opponents that no matter how one tries to rationalize by bringing stats, fifa ranks, lists and past & present history to justify our defeats, it just doesn’t help explain the result of that particular day’s match-up.

Because on those specific days the team that was supposedly superior on another plane of existence to us, just wasn’t good or wasn’t its usual self or was having a bad day or whatever.
Whatever the reason, these particular games are those rare opportunities where the lower ranked teams or the supposedly “weaker” teams have a shot at the big time and making history by beating teams that normally they would lose to.

and we've seen plenty of such "special days" that have made the whole world stand up in ovation to the senegals, nigerias, south koreas, turkeys and cameroons of the world.

Such occasions cross paths with almost every team. It is inevitable. Simply becoz no team is invincible all the time and every team, no matter how strong, how high a pedigree, or how massively famous, they are bound to have an off day once in a while. And lucky are those opponents who meet them on such days.

And these are the occasions where smaller teams make history, surprise the world and make a name for themselves by scalping a biggie. …. That is IF they DARE cease on the opportunity.

Our TM have been a part of such occasions too. One I clearly remember is the game against Mexico in WC06. You can rattle off stats and numbers till next Thursday morning about how “on paper” Mexico shd beat us black and blue. But it just doesn’t change the reality that on that particular day, that particular mexico was beatable. The chance and the opening was there. It was up to us to cease the initiative and catch it by the neck and capitalize on it. But we didn’t. some said too much respect, too far behind, too few this and too many that. Whatever it was, we just let that opening to worldwide recognition slip by without ever making a dent.

Our recent game against the south Koreans is another one. You can go on talking about number of legionnaires, K-league, facilities, … till you’re blue. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that this Korean team on Saturday 22nd of Jan 2011 was imminently beatable by Iran. Glory was right in front of us. But we were too frightened, too cautious and too paralyzed by fear to reach for it and claim it!
When your team enters the pitch with hands raised in surrender, fear showing in every aspect of your line up and then your tactics, then naturally that fear will only build and build till you’re paralyzed and mentally numb.

Without going into the nitty gritty of this game, it just reminds me of these “special occasions” whose failure will live with you for a long long time and no matter how much one tried to rationalize it by numbers and stats, one just cant help wonder what if …

What if we were a bit bolder. What if we were a little less scared. What if …

[Paradigm]

Or what if SKorea had won versus India 4-0 to top their group and we could have gotten Australia instead. It is remarkable we have to play the same team 5 times consecutively in the same stage of the tournament. What are the mathematical odds of that? It must be a sort of bad omen; we would have done better against Australia, at least got a shoot-out. And after all these trials too, I don't see South Korea getting passed Japan. The final will be between Japan and Australia in my best prediction.

[Doctor DOOM]

I believe the iraq & uae games fooled us all, thinking ghotbi would field a more or less similar line up and more importantly, similar attitude (even if it was heavily cautious, we still dared to go forward and apply pressure on the opponent halfway through second halves). so based on this, we all thought facing australia would be less of a difficult task than skorea.

but seeing how gutless and spineless ghotbi entered the game against the team he vowed to defeat becoz "he knew them like the back of his hand", I think we'd have done as badly against australia and would have lost by even greater margin.

why greater margin? becoz for all the spaces ghotbi allowed the koreans on the flanks to freely cross the balls into our 18, their strikers didnt fare well against our tall CD's.
but it would have been a different prospect against the efficient aussies whose main (and sole?) tactic is aerial balls and their heading ability.
and maybe since ghotbi had decided to be a spineless chicken in the QF's, he thought he could stand some chance against the skoreans in the PENALTY SHOOTOUTS. Afterall facing the korean keeper is better than schwarzer who's in form and highly experienced.


I really doubt facing ANYONE would have made much of a difference ... simply becoz ghotbi was a gutless little chicken going into the quarters and he (and many here) still hasnt understood in tournaments (unlike a league format), you NEED TO SCORE GOALS TO ADVANCE.
a goalless draw gets you nothing.

[Paradigm]

I found a more extensive highlights of SKorea-India, they could have easily scored another goal to make it 5-1 and top the group. That way they would have gotten an easier path to the final too, by avoiding Iran and Japan back to back. If you do the math, let's say they had a 60% = 0.6 chance of beating both Iran and Japan at a single game. But by the multiplication rule of probability, the likelihood of beating Iran and Japans "back to back" is 0.6 x 0.6 = 0.36 or 36% which should explain the situations about tournament progress a little better.

I'd say judging by the results, Iran, South Korea, Japan and Australia were close as far as strength is concerned. On a better day (or a better player selection by the coaches) Iran could beat South Korea, or South Korea could beat Japan. I think for us facing Australia would have been the best because of less "historical baggage" between the two teams, which could detract energy and focus from the actual game and redirect it towards the side issues. This considering the Iranian players have a higher tendency to lose focus by distractions.