Positives in Ghotbi's Team!

[Hajagha]

We have rightfully talked a lot about Ghotbi's shortcomings and failures. No doubt about them. He, with no credentials, got the job through a Mafia, he secured it through Ahmadinejad. He talked about the dreamland without delivering any thing,...

Still, I was impressed by his selection, his team performance and defensive built-up. Unlike many people taking on him about his formation, I think the 3 defensive midfielders worked for us. Nouri/Ando/Neko combo was better than any other combinations in that squad. If some one doesn't agree with that, I think he is day-dreaming. We had no offensive midfielder at international level who could carry the team on his shoulder. I take P. Nouri any day over M.Nouri for my team. I am surprised by some people and their comments that they think a defensive mid has no abilities for offensive duties! Any of these three mentioned players have the abilities to initiate an attack, while they are excellent in defensive duties.

We could have added Majidi and Karimi to this squad, but we all know that was not Ghotbi's fault, Karimi is banned from TM and Majidi didn't want to play.

Ghotbi was smart to set his line up with 3 defensive mid's. it worked for us last time we played against S. Korea. We needed a mistake from Korean which it never came. I would do so if I had to play them again.

Besides, he finally made Haj-safi a reliable left D. He also brought Arash Afshin.

Finally, he looked like a coach for us and he talked like a coach. That was his positives.

Again, I hate the guy for what he had done last year. I still think he ripped us up with million dollar contract. I don't even look at the guy if I see him some where. But this doesn't give me the permission to throw out what he has built up. I think he took many by surprise by the performance of his team. I expected much less than that.

Cheers,

[Doctor DOOM]

Still, I was impressed by his selection, his team performance and defensive built-up.


Unlike many people taking on him about his formation, I think the 3 defensive midfielders worked for us.


Nouri/Ando/Neko combo was better than any other combinations in that squad. If some one doesn't agree with that, I think he is day-dreaming.
We had no offensive midfielder at international level who could carry the team on his shoulder.


I take P. Nouri any day over M.Nouri for my team. I am surprised by some people and their comments that they think a defensive mid has no abilities for offensive duties!


Any of these three mentioned players have the abilities to initiate an attack, while they are excellent in defensive duties.


Ghotbi was smart to set his line up with 3 defensive mid's.


it worked for us last time we played against S. Korea.
We needed a mistake from Korean which it never came. I would do so if I had to play them again.


Finally, he looked like a coach for us and he talked like a coach. That was his positives.


Again, I hate the guy for what he had done last year.

Oooooooo ... I'm sooooo tempted to tear this apart. especially the bold parts.
so tempted.
and in so many ways, with due respect to haji joon, of course
hell, I even divided each line and sentence that needed to be .... errr ... "addressed"

but ..... I am going to relax and remind myself of one simple thing:
each person has his own standards, ceiling and level.

so I'll just smile and let it slide.
it's all cool. everything's fine. I can hear a distant brook. I can hear birds singing. I feel a gentle breeze on my cheeks.
it's all well .............

[Babak agha]

Haji be honest: who paid you and how much did they pay fir you to post that? And where can I sign up for it?

[Adesor Vafaseya]

Haji joon,

positives I observed were the following:

Field stretching/space use:
when with the ball TM was stretching and using the whole space on the field very well. specially the switch from left and right wing could be observed on several occassions.
What I could see is few short passes between DMF and DF back and forth to tease opponents to come closer and then immediate wing switch to the other side which created space. This was conducted very well in N. Korea game specially.

Switch between Offence and Defence:
when with the ball TM was stretching and using the whole space on the field very well.
when we loose the ball, all midfield ran back to close those spaces again.

Possessions: (did not work in S Korea game, but very well in Group stages)
players without the ball ran quickly into possessions.
What could be specially observed is that players had in many cases always more than one option to pass the ball, which means we stay closer to the ball holder and on the hand players on far right and far left run into possession for the wing switch.
This way we managed to put opponents pressed back in their own half, with exception of S Korea game, that does not apply to S Korea game.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ again, what comes to mind is the matter of one's standards.

if we keep comparing ourselves with C and at best, B grade teams, then we'd develop this level of standards for ourselves.

it's not about how well you do something against weaker opposition. it's about how well you do it against your peers or your betters.
that is IF we want to improve.
if we want to stagnate or regress, then by all means carry on comparing to .....

we want to know what and how and where we improved, lets watch those games where we played equal (or better) opponents

[Hajagha]

I compared ourselves to ourselves.

To me, we got the best we could get.

If this doesn't satisfy you, don't look for a better one in national level. Go and make it from scratch.

I think if we play 10 times against S. Korea, we lose 8 times of that. So, if some one comes and tells me that he had a better strategy to simply win that match, I only laugh.

Cheers,

[Keano]

if we keep comparing ourselves with C and at best, B grade teams, then we'd develop this level of standards for ourselves.

No, I don't think anybody is comparing us with any "C" or "at best B" teams, and if anybody tries to make it sound like it, it's a cheap shot! Neither Hajagha or Amoo Adessy implied such bizarre comparison DD jaan.

I myself compare this TM in Asian Cup to the TM of last 4-5 years, this team finally and after 4-5 years of boring and lackluster games while displaying defensively poor performance and horrendous connection between defense-midfield-offense lines managed to string some decent passing between all lines and most parts of the field. Now do I believe this TM was the best we've had, hell no! but I also believe that this TM lacked our usual star-studded squad we notoriously had benefited from in the past few decades.

DD jaan, I have a question for you and I really hope you'd answer my question based on honesty and unbiasedly, Do you truly believe this team performed worse than what we've seen from TM in the past 4-5 years? did you really not see any improvements?

[TrueBlue]

With all due respect, Ghotbi's team did not perform at all! Yes, we got three wins in the groups stages but we DID NOT play good! (except for second half of UAE game). Even against the teams lime Iraq and NK we did not have much to say. (even the players admit that)

Ghtobi's ultra-defensive minded tactics choked against SK. There is simply no positive in team that has 8 defensive minded players. End of story. And the fact that we lasted that long against SK was a miracle. I dont remember, in the past 32 years, a game against SK in which we were absolutely dominated the entire game, so much that after the defeat, i was not upset. The better team won, fair and square.

It is the time for some of us to accept the fact that mr Ghotbi, used this opportunity to jump start his coaching career. He was and still is a nobody. He was even too small for PP let alone for our beloved TM. He f***ed up big time. Let move on please.

[Doctor DOOM]

I compared ourselves to ourselves.



I think if we play 10 times against S. Korea, we lose 8 times of that. So, if some one comes and tells me that he had a better strategy to simply win that match, I only laugh.
Cheers,

then lets laugh together coz right off the top of my head, I remember these are the past 7-8 games w've had with the very same team you claimed we'd lose 8 out of 10 to:


1996 - AC - 6-2 iran
2000 - AC - 2-1 korea
2004 - AC - 4-3 iran
2006 - pre-AC - 0-0
2006 - pre-AC - 2-0 iran
2007 - AC - 0-0
2009 - WCQ 1-1
2009 - WCQ - 1-1
2010 - friendly - 1-0 iran
2011 - AC - 1-0 korea

cant remember if we've met in between. but I guess these shd shed some light on the "8 losses out of 10" argument

so here we have 10 games with iran winning 4 of them and korea winning 2 ( plus one through penalty tie breaks).
iran scoring 16 goals, korea scoring 10

and historically I think we've met over 30 times and the number of iran's wins is exactly the same as the koreans.

so how are we reaching this "8 losses out of 10" philosophy?

I think martin's 0.5 goal difference between us and them is more close to reality than the 8/10 loss. dont you?


*******************

to keano:
yes, most of the time ppl are praising how we beat uae and north korea ( teams who have ALWAYS come out second best to us and they can only DREAM about defeating us), how we had ball possession (although even in those games, most of the ball is being passed around between our defenders and def-mids IN OUR OWN HALF!!!! or adesy's switching flanks and use of flanks and spaces and .... .


how about checking the ball possession stats when we played a DECENT team like korea?
how about how we surrendered the flanks and spaces to the first decent team we met?
how about counting the number of passes we string together against a decent team (and not vs. oman or kenya's youth team or ...)?

yes, MY standards and point of reference is south korea and japan. not uae or panama or azerbaijan or kuwait.
becoz I dont want to stay in the same level as the latter list. I want to join the former two and be on par with them.
and like it or not, THAT is the only way we can improve and not lull ourselves with not so important opponents and wins.


and to answer you on the performance: I really think this was among THE WORST I've seen in a long long time.
certainly and definitely the most spineless and gutless . this one I guarantee.
I think the one against bahrain (under ghtbi) was pretty awful too.
so was the one against kuwait in waff (with full strength team) ... again under ghtbi.
then we have the one with daei as coach in uae
and the ksa game in iran under daei
happy?

[Keano]

and to answer you on the performance: I really think this was among THE WORST I've seen in a long long time.
certainly and definitely the most spineless and gutless . this one I guarantee.
I think the one against bahrain (under ghtbi) was pretty awful too.
so was the one against kuwait in waff (with full strength team) ... again under ghtbi.
then we have the one with daei as coach in uae

LOOoOL DD jaan, you conveniently missed many other awful games under other coaches reign, but I guess you won't admit, so I'll rest the case!

happy?

No, not really!

[Doctor DOOM]

^ you may rest wherever you desire.

my views are there in each game's thread.
maybe while you are resting, you can revisit those threads to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on each of those specific games and their coaching

[Paradigm]

then lets laugh together coz right off the top of my head, I remember these are the past 7-8 games w've had with the very same team you claimed we'd lose 8 out of 10 to:


1996 - AC - 6-2 iran
2000 - AC - 2-1 korea
2004 - AC - 4-3 iran
2006 - pre-AC - 0-0
2006 - pre-AC - 2-0 iran
2007 - AC - 0-0
2009 - WCQ 1-1
2009 - WCQ - 1-1
2010 - friendly - 1-0 iran
2011 - AC - 1-0 korea

cant remember if we've met in between. but I guess these shd shed some light on the "8 losses out of 10" argument

so here we have 10 games with iran winning 4 of them and korea winning 2 ( plus one through penalty tie breaks).
iran scoring 16 goals, korea scoring 10

and historically I think we've met over 30 times and the number of iran's wins is exactly the same as the koreans.

so how are we reaching this "8 losses out of 10" philosophy?

I think martin's 0.5 goal difference between us and them is more close to reality than the 8/10 loss. dont you?


*******************

to keano:
yes, most of the time ppl are praising how we beat uae and north korea ( teams who have ALWAYS come out second best to us and they can only DREAM about defeating us), how we had ball possession (although even in those games, most of the ball is being passed around between our defenders and def-mids IN OUR OWN HALF!!!! or adesy's switching flanks and use of flanks and spaces and .... .


how about checking the ball possession stats when we played a DECENT team like korea?
how about how we surrendered the flanks and spaces to the first decent team we met?
how about counting the number of passes we string together against a decent team (and not vs. oman or kenya's youth team or ...)?

yes, MY standards and point of reference is south korea and japan. not uae or panama or azerbaijan or kuwait.
becoz I dont want to stay in the same level as the latter list. I want to join the former two and be on par with them.
and like it or not, THAT is the only way we can improve and not lull ourselves with not so important opponents and wins.


and to answer you on the performance: I really think this was among THE WORST I've seen in a long long time.
certainly and definitely the most spineless and gutless . this one I guarantee.
I think the one against bahrain (under ghtbi) was pretty awful too.
so was the one against kuwait in waff (with full strength team) ... again under ghtbi.
then we have the one with daei as coach in uae
happy?

Doc, you forgot this: 1990 Asian Games Iran 1 - SKorea 0 (senio squad). Iran U-23 also had a sweet win in AG 2002 in Busan (PKs). Btw. that 2006 away game ended 1-1. I recall Hashemian scoring in the last minute of the game.

[Keano]

maybe while you are resting, you can revisit those threads to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on each of those specific games and their coaching

I don't see the urge to revisit the old threads, I hardly have time to keep up with your current write ups!

Plus your current arguments speak for itself!

Regardless of anything, reading your negative comments are quite depressive!

[Hadi]

fully agree.
Ghotbi did the right thing by playing 3DMs and packing a defensive lineup. That was our only chance. I would have done the same

[yashar_fasihnia]

a defensive midfielder like pejman nouri who hardly contributed to defense and was only getting dribbled around, not to mention his passive style of allowing the korean to have all the time he wants to position himself, aim and shoot in a difficult angle is hardly worth praising. and his 2 shots on goal were worse than arash borhani taking a left footed shot on goal!

we also played nosrati in the first half instead of khosro heydari to be more defensive (if being defensive was the approach to beat the koerans) and we saw how much worse we were than koreans in the first half. so there is absolutely no guaranty at all that if we had played hadadifar or mohd nouri instead of pejman nouri, we would have been worse than wat we actually were.

korea was a team that gave away 4 penalties in 6 matches in the tournament, and a few red cards including to india!
yet we hardly created any chance against them, our only true chance was an own goal they were about to score in the first half from a deflection of the korean defender's head.

so playing a 3 DM system, specially with a DM who had very negligible contribution in defense and 0 contribution in offense wasnt a positive.
the only time we played good, was against UAE in second half, when we had mohammad nouri combining brilliantly with khosro and heydari. a combination of hard working rezaei, intelligent nouri and skillful heydari caused hvoc to UAE's left side. meanwhile, hadadifar was proving himself on the left.


----

ghotbi's main positive was that a team with limited hashie, and in general high spirits and positive attitude.

inviting arash afshin, hadadifar and karim ansarifard.

a team that worked hard on destructing the opponent but relied on individual brilliances and mistakes of opponent to score.

during his tenure, he also made ehsan hajisafi an LB who currently seems one of our better options although he has been inconsistent in this post but his latest games in the tournament were good.

overall, he wasnt any better than ghalenoi or daei. while each of them brought something different to the table, i would categorize them all as more or less the same but with a difference that ghalenoi and daei never had the chance to work under european coaches as assistants and never had a chance to know the koreans so well which ironically was where ghotbi's biggest downfalls were, TWICE!

ever since branko, we have gone downhill and have failed to rise in the past 4 or 5 years.