A friendly which told us nothing

[Hadi]

Playing Palestine had no tactical benefit and did not expose the weaknesses of TM. Nor could it show which players are best to be used as the starting 11.

Palestine was extremely weak and they played a couple of levels lower than TM.

Again, the lack of preparation and the inability of Iran to play better teams is hurting our TM

The only positive aspect of this friendly was psychological and a boost in morale.

[Keshwardoost]

Well, this is my view on it

It told us that TM has got better on controlling the gameflow against weeker teams. Our own gamestyle has improved. We can compare this to the maldives games for an example.

The players are running much more in the right pattern and creating a lot of chanses.

We could, and should atleast scored 4-5 more goals.

It told us that we still waste to many CLEAR goal chanses and that we (still) really need to improve our strikers decisionmaking. (quicker passings and better finishing)

Mahini (who still made a good game) had for an example a pass to Kazemian who threw himself to poke the ball in to the net, but missed.. For many viewers, this may look like poor playing by Kazemian, but in fact Mahini had all time in the world and if he had passed the ball 2 seconds earlier it wouldnt have been such a hard pass and much easier to score on. Since the defenders wouldnt have a chance to take the ball, it would be a better angle and so on..

This sort of "small" details of error can be the differance between going to Brazil 2014 or another dissapointment for reaching WC. It should be important for Quiroz to have individual talks with the players, with video and everything. So when its a important game we dont waste these chanses cuz we wont get 1000 chances like in this game if we play against Japan, Korea.. There were a clear pattern of these poor individual decisionmakings in this game, and we would have scored many moore goals if the players had made faster/better decisions. This has offcource to do with football education in our country.


The defence (back 4) is still weak and unagressive/passive for counterattacks, eaven though one needs to play more offensive against such poor teams as Palestine. The midfield worked very well throughout the whole game in offence and defence.

I agree on that we really need better teams in our friendlies, and most importantly, we need MORE friendlies.


Meydavoodi: Eaven though i have said many times that he should be in TM, he showed of a really weak performance.. Wont be invited again?

Ghazi: Had some poor decisions, but showed of great running talents and smartness, should be invited agian?



Example: 09.50 - 10.00

The pass shuld have come at 09,57 and not 09,59

There were atleast 6-7 more of this sort of important mistakes during the game.

[maij]

Just in case anyone here thinks that Team Melli defeated Palestine National team , I better break the bad news and tell you that the team played on Wednesday had NOTHING to do with Palestine National team.

Allegedly this team has been gathered in haste from the West Bank ( excluding all the Gaza Strip National Team players and of course their legionaries) just to play Iran , presumably all expenses paid by the willing host.

I smelled something fishy whe I first heard about this friendly. It is NOT a standard practise to arrange an international friendly in 10 days notice.

BUT...then again , this is the way Queiroz wants it and he said it very plainly. " The fans should rejoice for this big victory , i enjoyed it thoroughly" or words to that effect........

Hmmmmmm...who the hell he is fooling? For sure he did not manage to fool many fans in Tehran , as less that 2000 fans turned up in Azadi and even those did not shy from displaying their disgust by chanting the name of , you know who

He likes it or not , it seems that Ali Daei is becoming the symbol of the opposition and the icon of resistance for the disgruntled Iranian fans

But ...if such a big win against a schoolboys team , raises the morale of the boyz , and some of the fans , then be it. I am not convinced by it neither my confidence in CQ is getting any better.....Hope his years in Real Madrid and Man Utd. Helps us through to Brazil , so that all this cheating and cheap tactics would be forgotten.

[Keano]

Damn, is this for real Maij jaan? fudge, you ruined my jubilation over this fancy scoreline. you party pooper Maij! JK

Oh wow, and what was the benefits of playing Team B of a weak Asian side like Palestine? what's to be earned rather than fooling the fans and even TM players for some phony scoreline and performance?

Maij jaan, did you get this news from a reliable source? I am very curious at this point. Thanks for sharing BTW!

[maij]

Damn, is this for real Maij jaan? fudge, you ruined my jubilation over this fancy scoreline. you party pooper Maij! JK

Oh wow, and what was the benefits of playing Team B of a weak Asian side like Palestine? what's to be earned rather than fooling the fans and even TM players for some phony scoreline and performance?

Maij jaan, did you get this news from a reliable source? I am very curious at this point. Thanks for sharing BTW!

You can find for yourself what are the names of the proper Palestine team from several sources , including AFC , FIFA and National-football-teams.com and compare it to the players who played vs. TM on Wednesday.

The news about selection of West Bank players only was for one of the Palestinian forums.

Why is CQ or IFF is doing that is beyond my comprehension. I can only speculate that CQ does not want an embarrassing result before an important match. In my opinion , it is fine if he thinks this is the way to go , but he should not insult the Iranian fans intelligence by acting as if we beat a world class team 7-0.

I did not even watch the match , the first TM match I have missed for decades ( apart from the ones that were not televised) because it was a farce to play Palestine (whose full squad is a weak team at best..let alone B or C team) which has nothing in common with Bahrain. ...Not that Bahrain is a great team either

[Keano]

Thanks for the elaboration Mai jaan. I am truly baffled, why not playing a decent domestic club like Esteghlal, Tractorsazi, Saba or Perspolis instead?

[Hajagha]

I didn't watch the game, from the highlight it seems that Mahini had a fantastic game.

Cheers,

[Adesor Vafaseya]

Mahini (who still made a good game) had for an example a pass to Kazemian who threw himself to poke the ball in to the net, but missed.. For many viewers, this may look like poor playing by Kazemian, but in fact Mahini had all time in the world and if he had passed the ball 2 seconds earlier it wouldnt have been such a hard pass and much easier to score on. Since the defenders wouldnt have a chance to take the ball, it would be a better angle and so on..

very wise observation. thanks.

[BacheLot]

I don't think it's CQ's fault that we can not organize better friendlies..! Obviously it's IFF's usual lack of foresight & proper long term planning that's @ fault here, not to mention their weak budget ..!
This Felestin friendly like Hadi said didn't do squat as far as truly exposing our weaknesses, especially defensive..! It nevertheless helped us get over the scoring off the run of the play drought & psychologically boost for us & the opposite for the visiting Bahrain..! It also allowed CQ to do some major flirtatious with his personell, like Finally starting an all new defensive Back4, especially our CDs ( I don't even remember the last time we didnt start a game w/o aghili& hossaini combo..!?)also Testing AK on left & a whole new more offensive role for Neku & Zareh as a CD..!
It sure wasn't a challenging friendly but as a tactical training it proved to be quite helpful..!
Btw
I can think of a few other similarly tokhmy opponents in past where we still couldn't score half as many goals against ..!!
Ps
Palestine in first half was ok but our starters ran them to the ground in first half & tire the heck out of them, intro of speedy frontline & 5 fresh starters in second half totally did Felestin in..!& it didnt help that their bench had nothing to offer outside a buch of amatures..!
My conclusion: certainly better than Nothing..!

[toofan]

even big teams dont play to their full potential againts weaker teams in
friendlies, so i dont mind the errors here and there.

it will get their confidence up, also get them used to scoring. who else would we get
apart from England and Brazil to play in 10 days notice?

in other words of reality, IFF should have done better, their organisation is a joke compared
to the best in the world.

[Hadi]

it's pretty sad id you think about it.

we played a home friendly with a country (which is not even officially a country) and did not even play their A team, yet we invited them and paid all their expenses.

[maij]

I am baffled at what is going in the minds of IFF when it comes to arranging friendly games. Believe you mean , it is not a science and nor is it neurological surgery. There are hundreds of agents that will kiss your feet to arrange a friendly international match so that they can earn a few dollars.

IFF or football in general in Iran , is not short of funds either. Don't let anyone fool you by saying we are short of money. There is enough money in Iran's football to run a country.

[yashar_fasihnia]

i didnt watch the first half of the match and although the whole situation is pitiful, i think it also showed us, specially the scoreline in first half vs second half, that carlos can and maybe should seriously consider some of the second half subs with more attention and compare them to the first half players.

if our A team wins 1-0 against the same palestine that our B team scores 6-0 against ( i believe palestine didnt do a lot of substitutions, atleast not in the early stages of the 2nd half), then that tells us our B team needs more attention and can contend with our A team.

[BacheLot]

Certainly..! But only to a point..! There are many other variables that affected the first & 2nd half results ..!
Tbo, Ghazi's first half goal was Key, IMO the only goal in that game against an actually a contentious defense..!

[yashar_fasihnia]

^
i didnt see the first half, so i dunno how we performed and how they defended, but in second half, their defense was really poor and i they made only 1 sub in the beginning of second half and the other subs were towards the end of the game?