What is (has been) wrong with this generation of TM

[Hadi]

Putting aside the macro problems of our country Iran, our mismanaged IFF, our far from professional league system, and the corrupted and inefficient clubs, one of the main differences of this team with our team during 1996 to 2006 is individual talents. Those Macro problems have always been there, well maybe not as bad as recent times, but they have been there

Many are going to disagree with me but I truly feel that we are lacking football talents. We do not have good players anymore.

Ours star players are Karimi and Nekonam from the 2000-2006 era. Besides them, no other player is a star individual in Team Melli. I always wondered why some Asian teams are purely unable to beat Iran even if they get top coaches, and I realized that a coach can't do miracles. If your players are low-level, you will surely lose to a team with players who are a class above you, no matter who is your coach. That is how we carved our way through other Asian teams in the past.

Our players are simply not capable of passing, defending, shooting and dribbling the ball on a top level. I would never have imagined players like Khosro Heydari, Mahini, Montazeri or many other current TM players of similar calibre to ever play in TM. We have/have had hundreds of such players in our league, but when it came to TM, we could always pick 22 players who were one class above other Iranian players. We can no longer do so.

We often relied on individual talent to progress. Now we do not have that anymore.

[maij]

I definitely agree with you.

It is a fact that some of our best or well known players fail to execute simple manoeuvrings such as basic passing , manipulation of the ball (trapping or controlling the ball at their feet) in addition to the more demanding skills such as long diagonal passing , effective crossing , and shooting ( straight , that is), consistently and to a high standard.

All such skills are essential for a player, without which a team is handicapped from the start.

I believe that this current generation of Iranian players are inferior to the previous ones despite the fact that more money is being spent on them and despite the fact that they have access to better training and resources. I don't really understand why , but I guess it is something to do with God given gifts (Natural abilities). You can teach a player so much in theory , but in practice he is what he is. Some have a limited ability & limited learning capacity , some skills cannot taught beyond certain levels , while very small minority are gifted and have natural abilities. Iranian players , now a days , have very few gifted players.

One other theory for this poor generation is that Basic Training from early ages is wrong , antiquated and carried out by low standard trainers. This could very well be a strong reasons , but I have no definite information , however it should not be ignored.

There is also the important factor of Attitude. I also suspect that the rotten attitude of many players is screwing them up and negatively affecting their forms and progress,

Whatever reason or combination of reasons , there is little doubt in my mind that this generation is performing poorly compared to the older ones,

[Martin-Reza]

Why are you always so negative? I think we have more depth now and we are more of a team now, it's not the takravi football from a couple of years ago anymore. That doesn't mean our players are worse.

I agree we are lacking young superstars, but on the otherhand we barely have a real low-quality player in the lineup anymore.

Our usual weakpoints of some years ago, like leftback, goalkeeper, central defense and even central attack are now filled with solid options.

[zzgloo]

I agree with Matin-Reza...
Lets not over analyse things.....TM has no apparant weakness anywhere...they may not be super-duper..but no liability...
( forget the Ali daie or Ghotbi Eras )...as we knew TM had to come up with a new generation..
Compare to Branko's Era...we have better goal keeper.....better forwards ( even without Dejagah )....better defense ( corners and center ).....and about equal midfield....
and By far, much better Bench....and better organization,better finnanced.

[Keano]

I think our TM of today relies more on teamwork rather than individualism and superstars. Such reliances on single footballers with such great footballing ability in a long run will do more damage and harm than benefits.

True we have failed to produce skillful and fancy players like Karimi and/or deft goal scorers like Ali Daei, however in all honesty do we think those players rose and shone because of our proper youth football and more organized leagues and football federation? hell no!!!!!! It was just a coincidence followed by some luck factor for our football to possess such great individual footballers!

We all saw what happened to TM with such huge collection of superstars back in 2001 during the 2002 WCQ, same in 2007 Asian Cup...

[BacheLot]

We have talent, perhaps even more widespread than in the past..!? But many of our younger ones, although talented, lack the sophistication, poise, vision & few really fundamental skills like Trapping, good touch on passing & intelligently moving W/O the ball..!
I blame lack of exposure to higher levels of league play as the biggest culprit, primarily due to our domestic clubs overpaying & taking away any motivation to join euro leagues..!
Also another glaring shortcoming is our overall Team Speed & Fitness levels..! Especially compared to teams who have more players in higher level leagues..! Right now only Ando & healthy Dejagha have the adequate fitness & energy to perform to their Skill potentials @ say WC ..!
We will get run all over, by even a shitty African team, if we were to enter a WC match with anything similar to fitness, which we played Uzbeks yesterday..! Perhaps CQ can do something about that..!?

[Doctor DOOM]

I put the blame squarely on the clubs (except maybe 2-3 of them; foolad, sepahan and zob) who totally mis0use and waste the young talent.

I see Esmaeili's name brought up in the general forum. he used to be the U17 captain and a fantastic player too. he was easily among the top 3 talent of his age group. but after his TM-youth games he disappeared in the club scene as our clubs have shown they dont trust or encourage such young players, no matter how talented they are. only after this many years I see his name again! and that's sad.

the problem is if we're seeing the likes of karimi and majidi and ... ( even the likes of nekounam ) still get called up to TM, it is less the fault of the younger generation and more the fault of coaches not trusting them. otherwise we have a decent (maybe not as much as a decade ago) turn-over of talent. we have the likes of kaveh rezaei, sadeghiyan, mosalman, ansarifard, afshin, Omid ebrahimi, lak, alishah, haghighi, khalilzadeh, ... and many more who CAN easily make a great TM in only 1-2 years from now (IF COACHES PUT THEIR TRUST IN THEM TO GAIN MATURITY & EXPEIENCE IN THE LEAGUE and TM )

it's the wrong culture of "result-oriented" outlook of clubs that forces them to fork out billions of tooman for mediocre "stars" than to put their trust in young, energetic youth who will last them much longer and make far more appreciative invetments for their clubs. in other words; short-sightedness of our management an coaches


when our established stars feel the hot breath of youth behind their necks they will either succumb to the pressure and move aside or will be forced to work harder and be at the top of their game to justify their presence at TM.
meaning no more seeing them unable to trap a simple ball or give so many wrong passes in one game or not bother with running most of the time or having a second wayward shot or ... . the moment they do this, they will be replaced by a guy 7-8 years younger than him who will do all he does but with more energy. so no more complacency.

so I understand what hadi is talking about. becoz these "stars" are so guaranteed of their place at TM that they just wont bother with hard-work to make their game better ... or hell, to even correct their deficiencies (!!) anymore. look at that idiot, jabbari as an example.

[Paradigm]

The boys have always had problems with the opening match of the series. I think we will see an improved performance starting the next match.

[Hadi]

Why are you always so negative? I think we have more depth now and we are more of a team now, it's not the takravi football from a couple of years ago anymore. That doesn't mean our players are worse.

I agree we are lacking young superstars, but on the otherhand we barely have a real low-quality player in the lineup anymore.

Our usual weakpoints of some years ago, like leftback, goalkeeper, central defense and even central attack are now filled with solid options.

not having superstars is a plus point.

but not having players who can play good football is a negative.

If in doubt, go and watch some full match footage from some of our 2006 or 2002 WCQ games.
compare the passing, ball trapping, crossing, finishing, and even physical skills like acceleration, jumping etc with today's team.

sometimes i feel like our team is a Maldives level team. our players MISKICK the ball 50% of the time. Mahini had a freekick near our box and his leg strength didn't even allow him to kick the ball high and far enough to pass the mid line. Our player Heydari has absolutely no sense of balance. Dribbling skills (which have always been a plus point of Iranian players) are non existent except for Karimi and Khalatbari.

[Hadi]

I definitely agree with you.

It is a fact that some of our best or well known players fail to execute simple manoeuvrings such as basic passing , manipulation of the ball (trapping or controlling the ball at their feet) in addition to the more demanding skills such as long diagonal passing , effective crossing , and shooting ( straight , that is), consistently and to a high standard.

All such skills are essential for a player, without which a team is handicapped from the start.

I believe that this current generation of Iranian players are inferior to the previous ones despite the fact that more money is being spent on them and despite the fact that they have access to better training and resources. I don't really understand why , but I guess it is something to do with God given gifts (Natural abilities). You can teach a player so much in theory , but in practice he is what he is. Some have a limited ability & limited learning capacity , some skills cannot taught beyond certain levels , while very small minority are gifted and have natural abilities. Iranian players , now a days , have very few gifted players.

One other theory for this poor generation is that Basic Training from early ages is wrong , antiquated and carried out by low standard trainers. This could very well be a strong reasons , but I have no definite information , however it should not be ignored.

There is also the important factor of Attitude. I also suspect that the rotten attitude of many players is screwing them up and negatively affecting their forms and progress,

Whatever reason or combination of reasons , there is little doubt in my mind that this generation is performing poorly compared to the older ones,

could not have said it better.

[KeonKish]

not having superstars is a plus point.

but not having players who can play good football is a negative.

If in doubt, go and watch some full match footage from some of our 2006 or 2002 WCQ games.
compare the passing, ball trapping, crossing, finishing, and even physical skills like acceleration, jumping etc with today's team.

sometimes i feel like our team is a Maldives level team. our players MISKICK the ball 50% of the time. Mahini had a freekick near our box and his leg strength didn't even allow him to kick the ball high and far enough to pass the mid line. Our player Heydari has absolutely no sense of balance. Dribbling skills (which have always been a plus point of Iranian players) are non existent except for Karimi and Khalatbari.

I personally think that our players lack defensive intelligence. Of course there are exceptions. But Our back 4 always end up in weird places forgetting where they belong, this ALWAYS happens with Iran.
It is actually an EGO issue. Everyone wants to be the goal-zan. Many of the players have very MINIMAL experience with physical players and in my opinion panicked against uzbekistan.
Why do I say this? Because in previous games where we used an attack style tactic ( one that is comfortable for iranians) , All of a sudden, half the team became amazing as we saw Heydari, pouladi, karimi and dejagah's beautiful plays come together with VERY dangerous passes.

This problem can not be solved until we learn to build more physical players and not super talented bache soosols like karimi.
If he wouldnt lose his balance so easily from challenges he could have scored double his career goals.

We have only had 2 players who push others around in a very dominant style
Daei, Teymourian.

Everyone else is a bache soosol who falls on their face in the penalty box trying , either from a challenge or an embarassing grass rolling attempt
They could instead actually try to score those goals.
For instance, the only wing and back players with proper muscle builds are Dejagah and pouladi. Mahini is too fragile and needs to put on around 15 pounds of muscle. Heydari needs to lose some fat and put on some muscle too. You can tell plenty from how the players muscles look, it speaks a bunch about their fitness.

[maij]

I always like the positive outlook and the glass of half full (rather than half empty) approach to life , but hiding my head in the sand is certainly not my cup of tea.

Saying that , sometimes we need to face bitter facts and reality . We must accept that we have a setback in the current football at organizational level and at technical/tactical aspect.

If you think we have more depth now and we are more of a team , then I would surely love to know how this conclusion was reached and what criterion have been used?

why cant's we beat the minnows of Maldives handsomely, the same team that we beat by 17 goals back in 1997. Why are we playing the poorest teams in the world for friendly games and struggling to beat them? Why doesn't the European team think highly of our players who are supposed to be better than the previous generations. There is another one hundred more such questions that I can put , but suffice to say that I have not noticed anything tangible to support that this generation is better.

...In a nutshell , what compromises more depth or better teamwork in your books ?


I believe that is is very much subjective to say that our players are better (or worst) than two years ago, That is an extremely difficult thing to prove. I am referring to a different generation of footballers.

Oh , one note . This takravi football , is very much a fact in Iran. All you need to do is regularly watch the league .

[Hadi]

The qatar match was further evidence of my point.

We played with a calculated approach. very similar to how we took on teams back in 2006.

The only difference was, our players did not have enough quality to break the defence of Qatar. No amount of tactics or coaching can help, if 90% of all your crosses are amaturish.
no amount of coaching can help if your players are slow and have bad positioning.

how many one twos did we do? how many good passes and crosses did we complete?

Everytime I see the quality of players like Heydari, i wonder what has happened to our football.

Rest of our midfielders are just average players. and our strikers? did we even have any? lol

[Hadi]

I saw a post in the general forum which puts things very rightly.

Players like Heydari, Ansarifard, Mahini, etc would have been ballboys if they were present during the peak of players like Bagheri, Daie, Kabi and Mahdavikia

[toofan]

more scouts, better youth system, IFF and professional coaching might have helped avoid such problem from the root.

relying on individual players or short-term expensive coaches to fix a bent root straight will either not work or be a temporary solution.