Is Queiroz failing?

[Mansoor]

Actually, this is one of those great threads that is worth reading it again, especially after fact. Very mature, lively, presented well from every aspect, and actually a witness to how our qualification path went with ups and downs reflected.

The answer is sure given though, as Carlos succeeded:

-- One characteristics that makes people like Carlos great is their ability to "adjust" and find solutions even in such difficult times as Iran faced. That's the difference between a good coach and a great coach. Another A+ for Carlos in that dept.

-- Going back to point A in first post, Carlos did that when he was able to push the players play up to their potential and above. I think he still has more work to do in that department and players can even get better in "playing together" section of it.

-- But point B, was partially achieved. He did help TM transit from old squad to players such as Gucci and a few new faces we saw at the end of qualifications, but the transit job was done partially.

I believe he still has 2-3 spots to put new players in. In particular and in my opinion, perhaps one winger and one or two midfielders (as Dejagah, Gucci, and Nekunam have their pass sealed).

Maybe miracle happens and Jahanbakhsh gets there soon enough to be that "other" winger we badly need.

Others who have a shot for this coming year, and I have a feeling they will push for it, seeing "play at WC" goal right in front of them and a whole year to catch up, are Rahmani, Mosalman, Gharibi, Sadeghian, and Alishah from U22 as well as Y. Karimi, O. Ebrahimi, and R. Haghighi.

Two players with long shots are Azmoun and Ansarifard if they get a chance to actually play in Europe.

[Doctor DOOM]

after all that's been said and done, I must add one thing:
We still dont know if CQ has a plan-B for the games. for the first 5 games, he showed he didnt have one.
and the final 3 games, more or less went according to the script (with a hefty dose of luck on our side).
But what if RGN wasnt at the end of the ricochet in qatar. or what if the penalty against shojaei was rightfully called? or what if the qatari's shot went in instead of hitting the bar and they parked the bus after that? or what if the koreans had scored in their counter-attack in 1st half? or what if the ref had red carded ahmadi in that incident? or ... ? and many other what ifs that would have put our qualification on the brink. even a single one of them would have meant us entering the prolonged elimination (play offs)

I'm happy we qualified. But there are some questions still remaining in my mind. and lack of a Plan-B is one of them

[Martin-Reza]

He always had a good plan and we were unlucky that it didn't work out early in the final stage.

He stabilized the defense, relied on experienced players and added fresh blood with European football mentality. He tried to stick to a certain team and not make too many experiments.

Besides, he fought on various fronts to improve our environment, such as league schedule, Hazfi Cup, IPL size, training camps, FIFA and AFC match scheduling, fitting equipment, discipline and more.

To me it was always obvious he was adding much needed professionalism while at the same time having a good plan on the field too.

That is why I was surprised and disappointed about the calls to remove this great coach, also by many knowledgeable members who usually don't let their emotions get in the way of rational analysis.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ good plan or not, a good coach MUST ALWAYS have a plan-B.
sometimes those "good plans" dont work, for variety of reasons, like refs not calling your penalties or goals, or opponents' keepers getting lucky, post hits, ... etc etc.

bringing professionalism and discipline and .. are all totally different things. Plan-B is about the game itself.

[Martin-Reza]

Sometimes, but sometimes you need to stick to your plan even if things are not going well immediately.

[Doctor DOOM]

and sometimes if you keep on trying a locked door, no matter how many times you turn the knob, the bloody thing IS locked .... then you have to try the window.

I just dont see or havent seen CQ try the window. he keeps on turning the same knob that hasnt opened the door!
he seems oblivious to the window or the need to try something other than the knob!

[Martin-Reza]

Seems the knob has eventually opened the door, while starting to doubt and jumping out of the window would have probably resulted in a broken neck . "Surprisingly" the multi-million dollar expert coach seemed to have known what he was doing from the start.

[Doctor DOOM]

yes, sure, ... if we discount the 3-4 extremely lucky occasions we somehow got away with. I guess 'getting lucky' is a part of the strategy. right?

but beware. lady luck is a fickle lass and totally unreliable.
you cant always "PLAN" on getting lucky with the defender missing the ball or the header squeeking an inch away, or the keeper making impossible double saves.
normally just one of those instances would be enough to prove your "keep at the door knob till grass grows under your feet" rule wrong. just ONE!

[Martin-Reza]

Over a span of more than a handful game you will always be lucky at some occassions and unlucky on others. We had been very unlucky in all of the three games we didn't win and overall I wouldn't say luck was a major factor in our qualification but rather a stable defense.

Just look at the Korea game, they had like 75% possession, but how many clear scoring chances did they have? 3 or 4, maybe 5 real threats. That's not a matter of luck, but of organization, concentration, confindence and discipline - things Queiroz concentrated on from the beginning.

[Doctor DOOM]

the point I'm trying to make is nobody shd be foolish enough to rely on luck to get things done.
you may get lucky (as we were in tashkent, ulsan, tehran vs korea), you may also be unlucky* (in lebanon and tehran vs uzbeks). Or luck may not play any part at all and you can play for 4 hours using the same tactics and get nowhere.

so to think "I'm going to have one plan and keep at it and even if I dont succeed, I will get lucky" is pretty foolish.
a wise person will always have a "plan-B" in case things dont work out. IRRESPECTIVE of luck.


ANY ONE of those 3,4-5 korean chances could have doomed us. All it would take is for the ball to be a couple of inches to either side and we'd be discussing/dreading the play offs right now!! then you wouldnt be sitting here saying CQ's single strategy worked.
the longer we close our eyes to the problems, the worse things will get. we're basically fooling ourselves by basing any theories or arguments on a game that LUCK was the biggest player on MULTIPLE occasions.





* - as for the bad luck cases, again I must remind all, we can have a say in how lucky or unlucky we can get, to some extent also.
take the game against qatar earlier in the round and the one in previous round. WE, by our own decision making, reduce our luck and success rate by choosing a striker that is out of form and has very low strike rate for that period.
we can say we got unlucky we didnt score 4 goals against qatar in qatar (last year). true. but we also must admit the player WE CHOSE had a lot to do with all those misses and unlucky instances.
who knows ... maybe if we had a more in form striker instead of ansarifard, we could have actually converted a couple of those 4-5 chances.

That's why I say we cant rely on luck. but we can increase or decrease it by taking positive or negative steps.

if we stick to only one strategy without a back up, we ARE reducing our luck and success rate. By the same token, if we do have a plan B if our plan A doesnt bear fruit, then we are INCREASING our luck. as simple as that.





I just cant understand why we're arguing over something so blatantly obvious and common sense; one needs to have a back up plan.
that's a universally accepted and proven notion. and shdnt need anyone to explain it.
I just dont understand why there's an argument over such an obvious and clear matter. it's like arguing benefits of breathing oxygen!

[Martin-Reza]

Nobody doubts one needs to have a backup plan, but the question is when to give up the initial plan A. That depends on many factors. If you start doubting too early and get insecure, you might give up the main plan too early and since you will basically start from scratch again it is a risky thing and shouldn't be done too early.

[Doctor DOOM]

and who's talking about "too early"? minute 10? 20? 30? No. but if you keep on doing the same thing, only to get the same negative results by minute 65-70, you HAVE TO try something different; namely, plan B.
and CQ has shown he doesnt have a plan B. that's why luck payed such huge parts in both our victories and defeats in this round. Because we couldnt control our destiny on our own.

[Martin-Reza]

No, you don't have try it. Only if you have a crystal ball and can look into the future and know it won't work with plan A - or a bit more realisticly, if many factors point to a likely negative outcome.

Imagine CQ would have changed the plan early in second half in Tashkent, Doha or Seoul. We rather certainly would have failed to qualify for WC.

Same goes for Kafashian, had he panicked like in 2009, the result probably wouldn't have been better than back then.

I know psychologically it is very attractive to often demand change when things don't immediately go the way they were planned, but both in football as well as in my job I have learned that it is very often a good idea to stick to a well made plan you already invested much into rather than making changes just for the sake of doing so.

We are arguing for years now and I have learned that you seem to be a person who has an affinity to the concept of change, while I tend to be more "conservative" than you. I think that is one of the biggest reasons why the two of us disagree so often.

[Doctor DOOM]

I can say the exact thing and say "unless you have a crystal ball to know if you persist more on the same tact you will get the result", common sense dictates you try a different approach as your primary approach has shown to be ineffective.

talking about tashkent or ulsan or tehran or any game that has already happened in HINDSIGHT proves nothing as there are both supportive and unsupportive facts (I could bring up lebanon for example).
in other words, it is easy to say we stick to the plan because we know at minute 93 we'll score a goal against the run of the play.
But WHILE the game is on, neither you, nor CQ or me or anyone else knows that. ALL WE KNOW IS WHATEVER WE'RE DOING IS NOT GETTING THE JOB DONE.
you will not find anyone saying "I am sure we'll score the goal at min 93" while on the screen, we see wave after wave of uzbek attacks and even legitimate goal and penalty calls and ... . I'm sure you or anyone else wouldnt have said that.



I cant believe we're arguing about such an ordinary and obvious matter that holds true not only in football, but in all aspects of life ("always have a back up plan") ... unless we're so bored. with no football games, club, league or nat'l games, we MUST busy ourselves with something. so lets argue over obvious issues!!! lol




as for demanding a change, nobody is demanding it just for the sake of seeing change. change is demanded when things dont work and there is a need for a different approach or for an improvement. if this attitude was not seen in man, today we'd still be riding horses and this message would be written on a piece of paper, reaching you after a month or two.
so change IS good.

[Prince of Fasa]

I can say the exact thing and say "unless you have a crystal ball to know if you persist more on the same tact you will get the result", common sense dictates you try a different approach as your primary approach has shown to be ineffective.

talking about tashkent or ulsan or tehran or any game that has already happened in HINDSIGHT proves nothing as there are both supportive and unsupportive facts (I could bring up lebanon for example).
in other words, it is easy to say we stick to the plan because we know at minute 93 we'll score a goal against the run of the play.
But WHILE the game is on, neither you, nor CQ or me or anyone else knows that. ALL WE KNOW IS WHATEVER WE'RE DOING IS NOT GETTING THE JOB DONE.
you will not find anyone saying "I am sure we'll score the goal at min 93" while on the screen, we see wave after wave of uzbek attacks and even legitimate goal and penalty calls and ... . I'm sure you or anyone else wouldnt have said that.



I cant believe we're arguing about such an ordinary and obvious matter that holds true not only in football, but in all aspects of life ("always have a back up plan") ... unless we're so bored. with no football games, club, league or nat'l games, we MUST busy ourselves with something. so lets argue over obvious issues!!! lol




as for demanding a change, nobody is demanding it just for the sake of seeing change. change is demanded when things dont work and there is a need for a different approach or for an improvement. if this attitude was not seen in man, today we'd still be riding horses and this message would be written on a piece of paper, reaching you after a month or two.
so change IS good.

dadash I tire of your relentless and in most cases un-needed use of long, exclamatory, and usually negative posts. I cannot believe that even after Iran has qualified to Brazil because of Carlos Quieroz's guidance, you still refuse to hand him the credit that he rightfully deserves. your innate and undeniable bias against Quieroz will stop you from rationally judging the situation.

of course we may have run into some minor "road-blocks" but no qualification is perfect and you will always be faced by both lucky and un-lucky events, I believe we had an equal amount of both. we were unlucky in Tehran vs uzbekistan, beirut vs lobnan, Tehran vs qatar, manama vs bahrain, whereas the only trully lucky event I believe we encountered was our win vs uzbekistan in tashkent, other than that I would not call any of our other wins lucky they were rather a testament to how organized our team was and how hard they worked and played