Jordan - Iran (friendly)

[Doctor DOOM]

To sum up all, ie; TM performance, CQ's selection, tactics, ... etc :





in first half only khalatbari, montazeri (except in one occasion) and perhaps mahini were acceptable. the rest, including our (former and present) legionnaires were all weak.

second half with ghazi coming in we looked better (no surprises here). pejman nouri and Md nouri both played well.
so did ebrahimi, who on his third (or 4th?) stint at TM finally showed a good performance. maybe he had beginners' jitters.


- omid nazari: nothing special seen from him in his 3 games at TM. very ordinary. I'm thinking if he was playing in IPL, he'd never had been called. we also have great talent like omid ebrahimi, mosalman, ... who, imo and from what I've seen from nazari, are more skillful and superior who are left out of TM.

I see people nearly raving about nazari. But I didnt see anything extraordinary from him. aside from the single shot he had (which I think is the reason why ppl are raving about him), he played a very ordinary, safe game with little to highlight.

but when I see ppl say zareh also played well due to his shot on goal (on target, after a couple of years. no? lol), I see we tend to sum up an entire performance over a moment. same thing with shojaei whose single dribble sudenly made his piss-poor performance into an acceptable one for some!



- shojaie didnt impess and his more than a year absence shows he needs a lot of work to get back in shape.

- nekounam's poor defending and marking again reared its head when the jordanians hit our post.

- rahmati still showing his weaknesses in exits.

- foolish decision to START with ansarifard after dropping him from the list earlier. shows how CQ panics and makes illogical decisions.
ballerina shd stay home and watch some football from TV

- very very poor game by hajsafi

- 0-0 draw. I know "someone" must be feeling joyful and happy with this scoreline


- CQ arguing over a missed corner call? before bowing and praising this, we might want to consider he's slowly feeling the heat and knows with continuation of such piss poor shows, especially with no goals or wins, he might feel even more heat and fire under his feet.

[Paradigm]

Doc, are there better players you would suggest for the various positions? I agree Ansarifard should not have even be invited. It's natural to expect that the current IPL top scorer always deserves a TM call up (and that person is not Ansarifard.) In any event I hope the boys can lift up their performance for the crucial game in Lebanon.

[Martin-Reza]

Ansarifard did well. He had many touches and is technically and physically able to hold and distribute the ball against many opponents and to draw fouls. He just currently has a crisis in front of goal, trust in him and he'll pay back.

Ghazi simply cannot match Ansarifard's in-game qualities, as shown again today, and in the middle run he can't match his goalscoring record either, as all stats show.

Just jump off the Ansarifard bashing bandwagon and show some patience.

Ghazi's pyhsique and aereil qualities are a useful weapon of course, I just hope the injury is not so bad.

[zzgloo]

TM players appears to be playing a style of football they are not yet comfortable with....there are is no sense of familiarities on what they are doing.

[maij]

Excellent analysis like always , Doc , but i really..really ...do not agree that Ansarifard (aka Ballerina ) should stay home. While I support you on the indecisive selection of Ansarifsrd by CQ , I think he did well in the half he played. His sudden burst of speed when he passed his marker was so delightful. Petty he panicked and shoot from a long distance as he did not realize how much more time he had with the defender behind him. It is one positive thing (acceleration) by Karim that I , admittedly , not noticed before.

It was a friendly match , but it was an ugly performance. As far as I am concerned , the fate of Team Melli lies in the next two matches. I seriously do not think that Team Melli , with such performance , will beat Lebanon, so I guess we have to brace ourselves for another 0-0 , however , other drop points against Korea , and I think we will be struggling and have to fight for the third spot.

I really don't know about this Carlos Queroz. He might have been the best coach in the World at some stage , but I honestly do not see the slightest of improvements since he took over the team. He has been at it for 14 months now , so , no more of this give him time business. He has to deliver , and time is not a luxury that he has.

[maij]

You know what I dread about the various Team Melli coaches?

It is their reluctance to try new players and stick to the same old names regardless to the standard. Daei was an exception , but the rest always go for the same names. I suspect that these coaches like CQ go to Azadi (and on rare occasions , to other cities) just to quieten the critics!

A descent coach , would bench Nekounam , amongst other things he should do and options he can find...but would CQ do that ?

[Doctor DOOM]

Ansarifard did well. He had many touches and
is technically and physically able to hold and distribute the ball
against many opponents and to draw fouls. He just currently has a crisis
in front of goal, trust in him and he'll pay back.


his form has been so dismal and
pathetic that if in one game he actually does manage to get a shot
through (nevertheless a weak one ... no surprises here), we suddenly
feel he's done great!!! says a lot about his poor poor form he's in


Ghazi simply cannot match Ansarifard's in-game qualities, as shown again today, and in the middle run he can't match his goalscoring record either, as all stats show.

hahahahahahahaa.
sorry. I'm dying of laughter. yes, yes, ghazi simply cannot match
ballerina's "on-game" qualities. I mean one has to bring a 12 year old
little girl to be able to match those dismal levels. poor ghazi is just
too powerful, too energetic, too engaging & physical to ever dream of competing on the DELICATE levels ansarifard does.
mate, lets not cook up stuff just so we can persevere on our stances.


stats? there are whole threads why those are useless. otherwise talk to:





and ........ etc etc ... , who never got your endorsement


you just cant pick and choose. this is what they call flip-flop and double standards.

hehehe. still rolling



But jump off the Ansarifard bashing bandwagon and show some patience.

ok. if you think
this is a "band wagon" and by calling it you can sleep better at night,
then please go right ahead. I'd say if the lad continues to show weak
performances, weak shots, lack of engagement, shying away from any
physical tussle (despite having a great physical frame and height. what a
total waste!!), then this wagon is going to roll on and on.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

Ansarifard did well. He had many touches and is technically and physically able to hold and distribute the ball against many opponents and to draw fouls. He just currently has a crisis in front of goal, trust in him and he'll pay back.

Ghazi simply cannot match Ansarifard's in-game qualities, as shown again today, and in the middle run he can't match his goalscoring record either, as all stats show.

But jump off the Ansarifard bashing bandwagon and show some patience.

Ghazi's pyhsique and aereil qualities are a useful weapon of course, I just hope the injury is not so bad.

100% agree with you.

[Doctor DOOM]

yeah, majid jan. I know. I shdnt have said karim shd watch games from home.
he deserves to be a PART of the general squad chosen as his age favors him. But starting with him when he has done very very little to support this is just too wrong.


spot on on the matter of coaches never doing anything out of their "safety zone" even if it means a better team/quality in the medium run. everything is short term with them and they all think about protecting their spot FIRST, rather than improving the team.

But amazing how NAMES figure so heavily in most coaches' minds and plans. sigh! where are the dehdari's of the time? I must agree with you that Daei came closest to such ideals (despite insisting on a couple of his favorites like gholamnejad who werent exactly the best iran had to offer like heidari or the same rahman ahmadi, who at the time was not the best , or ... etc).

[K. Nader]

Another game, another poor performance by Team Melli...

To begin with, CQ is fully responsible for this loss. After 14 months on the job he has failed to reform a weak midfield which has significantly brought down the pace of our game. What's even worse is that many of his chosen players are either under-performing in their respective clubs or fail to get any playing time at all!

Before setting CQ on fire for his lack of variety in player selection, let's see what he has done thus far in each position.

Goalkeepers: A rather satisfactory selection which constantly features Haghighi and Rahmati. Given Gordan's poor performance over the past season, he's slowly lost his place to Forouzan who will provide good competition for Haghighi to becoming Rahmati's successor.

I don't see Ahmadi in TM beyond this single call-up (given Forouzan's Visa issues). I respect Ahmadi for what he did with Sepahan last season and thus far with Saipa but the player is already 32. Given that Rahmati will be our chosen keeper for at least another two years, I don't see the logic in bringing in an older keeper as the back-up (unless that player already has some experience in the national team to which Ahmadi only has 1 cap).

Lastly, one frequent issue that has been brought up is that of Rahmati. I agree that Rahmati is extremely indecisive when it comes to coming out of his box but he is undoubtedly the best we have in this position and possibly third best in the history of our football (behind Hejazi and Abedzadeh). Unless he starts making serious errors in the WCQ matches, he will be our #1 keeper.

Defence: As far as reforms go, this is probably CQ's biggest success. With the introduction of Pouladi, Mahini, and Montazeri, CQ has found intelligent players in all three defensive positions. Also, the fact that Pouladi and Mahini are 25 make them long-term investments for TM.

Our LB position has been at its best under CQ with both Pouladi and Hajsafi capable of getting the job done. I also like how Pouladi is more defensive-minded where Hajsafi is more offensive-minded (ignoring his poor game today). Such depth really helps when it comes to facing various opponents.

The same can be said about our RB position. Of course, neither Mahini or Heydari will ever measure up to Mahdavikia but they get the job done. Mahini is definitely the more intelligent of the two and has more variety to his game but I'm glad to see that Heydari has been connecting well in plays with Dejagah.

In the CB position, I'm going to take a guess and assume that CQ is beginning to favor a Hosseini & Montazeri partnership over an Aghili & Hosseini partnership. I'm personally in complete agreement with this given combination and hope to see Aghili phased out of Team Melli soon. Should Aghili be replaced by Khalilzadeh in future TM lists, I'll fully give credit to CQ for his selections in this department.

Forwards: Similar to our defensive line, CQ has a lot of variety in our forward line. With the introduction of Dejagah, Ghazi, and soon, Gucci, we'll have an extremely capable attack. Khalatbari is a great technical and speedy player but the guy has an extremely low IQ. If he's not at his best, he'll be a serious liability to the team given some poor decision making and selfishness on the ball. Luckily, he's been looking sharper since moving to Sepahan.

Apart from our midfield, CQ's biggest failure has been Ansarifard. First he drops Ansarifard given his poor performances only to call him back up following Dejagah's injury (fair enough). What really rattles me is the fact that this very same player gets the nod to start against Jordan. To his credit, he did play better today than in the past few games but his playing time was undeserved. Calling up and starting players that are performing poorly instills a sense of entitlement in that player and takes away from the fact that he needs to improve. I'm sure we'd all like to see Ansarifard succeed but I think CQ has been approaching this situation very poorly.

As I mentioned in another thread, the sixth forward position should be used to invite a play who is performing well in the league. Whether that player is Rafkhaei or M. Ebrahimi, there a few forwards that deserve to be given a shot in Team Melli. I'd personally like to see Afshin again but it seems his frequent injuries last season has taken him out of the spotlight. It's fair to not that CQ has invited a few other 'new' forwards in the past (i.e. Saeed Daghighi).

Midfield: Absolute disaster. Old. Slow. Terrible. Nekounam is 31. Karimi is 33. Zare is 27. Pejman Nouri is 32. Mohammad Nouri is 29. Ando is 29. Hadadifar is 28. Shojaei is 28. Excluding Nazari, the average age of this line will be roughly 32 by 2014. If these players were running around like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, I would keep my mouth shut but each of them has been unimpressive.

Nekounam is our captain and we'll have to deal with him for another two years whether we want to or not. Toss Masoud in that crowd and he becomes veteran #2. I personally like what I'm seeing from Nazari but I don't think we've seen the best of him yet. I'd give him another 2-3 games to acclimatize himself with the national team. If we want to be diplomatic and have balance in this line, take your pick between Ando and M. Nouri but stop there. The rest should be dropped and told that they will no longer be called up (similar to Ballack and Beckham). The longer we drag these players, the longer they'll feel entitled to a spot in a potential World Cup team. Furthermore, the longer we hold on these players, the less time will be given to our youngsters.

With roughly two spots remaining, these MUST be given to the future of our midfield. Players like Y. Karimi, Haghighi, and Mosalman have been consistently playing well but are not being rewarded for it. If Team Melli isn't going to be merit based to some degree, then what do these players have to play towards or aspire to? Again, this line has been CQ's biggest failure.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking beyond our players, I'm surprised that nobody has yet to address the 4-3-3 system that is being employed by CQ. This system requires excellent passing and the ability to maintain possession - two qualities which TM lacks. Personally, I feel that changing back to 4-4-2 would be the most beneficial system to Team Melli.

Should Gucci live up to his name (being of high quality ), I'd like to see him as a supporting striker to Ghazi. I'd then place Dejagah as a right winger (his natural position), Shojaei as our AM, Nekounam as our DM, and experiment with a left winger.

With Dejagah, Gucci, Ghazi, Montazeri, Pouladi, Forouzan, Mahini, Nazari, and possibly Khalilzadeh, CQ has introduced 9 new players to Team Melli. However, the reason we're not 'seeing' this is due to the fact that we've yet to see major reform in the backbone of any team: the midfield.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ Mate, AGE is an important matter when we are talking about midfield and forwards. but in case of defenders and especially keepers, other matters such as form and capabilities take precedence.
Peter shilton was england's keeper till he was 40. same with zubizaretta in spain and zola in italy and ... etc etc

Ahmadi has shown he is a key player in his clubs in the past 1 and half seasons at least. so overlooking him in favor of a "name" (haghighi) imo is a wrong call. I'd even say guys like LAKK or Forouzan shd take precedence over haghighi, if our aim is to have YOUNGER back-ups for rahmati.

totally with you on defenders & midfield though.

**********

I hardly see any TRIANGLES in the team. you'd expect such fundamental things from an int'l coach of CQ's stature.
over 14 months into his tenure and we still dont see many palpable evidence of "progress or improvement". K-Amir in the football forum did say he actually sees regress. I must say I cant really disagree wt him. stats & numbers are just a cover for the real thing called quality. the team's performances and quality clearly indicates differently.


**********

The second issue is DUOS or COMBINATIONS. There arent many combos in the team, especially if going forward. in defense, we have the hosseini-aghili duo who seems to have become a pair. I'd strongly add montazeri to the duo as an alternative as seen from his versatility and intelligence and pace (something that is lacking in the former duo).

But coming up the pitch, we rarely see a fit or combo that work off each other and combine well.
you'd expect neku-ando to be one such duo. But I still see a lot of inconsistencies there. and with neku's form declining, I'm afraid we wont get to see brilliant quality in that zone anytime soon!

on the flanks also the only hope is on the right side where dejagah (with his intelligence) can and shd combine with either heidari or mahini. he did show pretty nice coordinated moves in his first 2 games with both haidari and mahini. so there's hope.
But the left is where there are a lot of shuffling of players that none have struck a match. hopefully we'll get to see a nice combo here too. maybe between khalatbari and pouladi.

I dont see much of a combo between khalatbari and karim. but I'd say ghazi would pair well with kh. given their years in zob ahan. it also shows in recent TM games where kh assisted ghazi's goal and in yesterday ghazi feeding kh for a nice header (replica of the other one). so I say this is what we shd stick with

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

MIDFIELD:
for years and decades Iran's strongest zone and in some years actually an embarrassment of riches was the midfield. Coaches always had a lot of headache trying to decide which stars to leave OUT as we always had a handful of great prospects and stars numbering up to 10 and beyond who could take care of the middle belt of the team. Our midfield therefore was the team's strong point while defense and forwrads were always lagging behind.

Now, our weakest and least productive zone is the very same midfield!!
AGE of the players has a lot to do with it as Nader mentioned.
I'd add my bug-bed and perennial criticism of "name-based selection" too.

just remove nekunam's name (or forget that it is him) from the body that is playing on the pitch. lets call this person GHAZANFAR.
ONLY looking at this unknown person, Ghazanfar's movements, passing, tackling, marking, ... , would you guys still keep him in the starting line up? NO.
Ghazanfar would have to sit on the bench and watch the other 11 players play and maybe hope to come in as a sub, once in a while.

I say name-based because I see evidence of it. shojaei comes in after a year and half of rest and actually STARTS!
haghighi gets booed after every pp game and fans shout for his drop. .... and by some fluke gets a transfer and VOILA! heis name gets stuck on each and every TM list without having played a full (or even half ) official game for his club!!

but poor lads like omid ebrahimi, sadeghiyan, mosalman, ... get neglected and passed over despite showing great skills and talent for more than 2-3 years in a row ... only because they dont have the dumb luck of the likes of haghighi to get picked.

[maij]

yeah, majid jan. I know. I shdnt have said karim shd watch games from home.
he deserves to be a PART of the general squad chosen as his age favors him. But starting with him when he has done very very little to support this is just too wrong.


spot on on the matter of coaches never doing anything out of their "safety zone" even if it means a better team/quality in the medium run. everything is short term with them and they all think about protecting their spot FIRST, rather than improving the team.

But amazing how NAMES figure so heavily in most coaches' minds and plans. sigh! where are the dehdari's of the time? I must agree with you that Daei came closest to such ideals (despite insisting on a couple of his favorites like gholamnejad who werent exactly the best iran had to offer like heidari or the same rahman ahmadi, who at the time was not the best , or ... etc).

All right , Doc. I have to ask this one.

What about Branko Ivankovic when it came to selecting young , not famous and promising players? How would he stand amongst the rest of Team Melli coaches?

Thank you very much for mentioning Dehdari. He was the master who taught the rest how to deal with young talents and coach who did not stand for the nonsense pf "Salari" players. Do you remember when 9 Team Melli players boycotted the team because of Dehdari being a tough coach ? I doubt if any Iranian coach will have the guts and the courage of Shadravan. Thanks for the good old memories..

[Paradigm]

I seriously miss the times when we had a couple of definitive forwards (Daie aka The King, and Hashemian aka Der Huebschrauber). These past 6 or 7 years it feels like Team Melli has been working with substitute or makeshift strikers. (Starting with Enayati and Khatibi in AC '07 and continued now by Ansarifard and Ghazi).

[Doctor DOOM]

^ that's partly because we are/were spoiled by the generation 1996-2004 when MK (the now lunatic in chief of iranian football) started with bringing no names but voraciously hungry youngsters like mahdavikia, nakisa, minavand, yazdani, ... to a team that already had the likes of bagheri, azizi, daei, abedzadeh, khakpour, estili, ... etc., and then with a little gap in between, Ciro shook Iran once again by having the guts to pick players outside of the two soosools in tehran (rahman rezaei, mirzapour, mobaali, ... etc) and gifting branko with a good team on his departure.

those two generations have become our benchmark for comparing just about any TM roster and sadly almost every squad pales before those heroes.

----------

To answer Majid's question :"What about Branko Ivankovic when it came to selecting young , not famous and promising players? How would he stand amongst the rest of Team Melli coaches?"
... aside from detecting a hint of mischief in that Q, I think I have to remind us all of a couple of key points:


1- the NO-NAME selection was NOT done by branko. it was his boss, CIRO who chose those no-name players who became stars of the team on their own. rahman rezaei was oicked by ciro. so was mirzapour and a few others. not branko.

2- later, after firing ciro, branko was chosen to head our U-23 team that was again LOADED with magnificent talent the likes of which we've never had in our olympic squads post revolution. check out the names:
mobaali, kazemian, nekounam, lotfi, bayatinia, ... . they won the asian gamea and while some were already famous players, the rest also became house-hold names.

and when this team won the asian games, it was only natural for the bulk of this team to be included in the future seniors team that already had plenty of stars like bagheir, karimi, daei, kia, ... etc in it.

3- I'd even say branko actually RESISTED bringing NEW players. worse, if the player was not famous too.
remember how he stuck with a set bunch of 9-10 players throughout his last 2 years, with never changing or trying out alternatives for his main squad? ... no matter how lousy the opponent or how meaningless the test games?
(how some of us screamed why he didnt dare try alternatives?)
and how his brain-dead strategy bit us (who the hell cares about the wimp. he got his money and became famous off our back) in the arse when one by one his stars and fixed players fell to injury (kia, VH, karimi, ... etc) at the worst possible moment (right at the WC)?

so my answer to your Q is: bro, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. that thing doesnt even EXIST

[Paradigm]

Did you guys see the scene where Aghili hit the Jordanian player? He dropped like a fruit from the tree... Could have been a red card.