Things learned from Iran vs Croatia [Discuss Here]

[KasraKhan]

1) I was impressed with Sohrab. I forgot how good he is since he has been away from TM for a few years. He is a good defensive midfielder, and I would give him the nod over Teymo if Branko decides to play with 2 DM since he has more experience.

2) Nosrati as left back again.....uh-oh. I really think Zareh is a better option than Nosrati at the LB position. Nosrati participates in offense really well, but he makes too many mistakes and is very error prone with his passes in the backfield.

3) Daei. I dont know how some people can sit here and STILL defend Daei. I love Daei, dont get me wrong, he has done so much for TM. But.....so many wrong passes, so slow, so out of shape. He really slows down the team. When Daei left the match, the game seriously opened up, and the speed in our attacking line was evident. He seriously did not done one positive thing in the match, and Im not being sarcastic.

4) Karimi is God, he is our entire team, the engine, the motor, everything. He is above what any Iranian player is.

[The-Red]

yes, there are so many positives, but many times when we focus on the good scoreline of friendlies we forget to look at the negatives and our weaknesses,,,,I think we did well overall, but to be fair we are not stable in the back at all we often can not clear the balls, we give too many rebunds and lose in the air,,,these are points that Portugal and Mexico will be looking for to expose...
I got to say sometimes when we are playing against a team that we know we will be defending for most the game, Daie is really useless, he takes away the chance for speedy strikers and counter attacks...! he has his role as a leader no doubt, but to me he brings enough negatives to the game of the whole team that his 90 min presence is not necessary..I was happy to see him subbed out,,,

I am happy we did not win, we do not want over confidence. It often happens to us.
Also now I think Portugal and Mexico will be looking at us more carefully seeing us in action, with almost our full team.

btw, if a team can do a good job on marking Karimi, our engine goes off! doesn't it?

[KasraKhan]

Red jan, To answer your points

1) I agree about our defense, even Rezaei was sub-par today. We can not clear balls well. But that is typical TM, we never had a good defense and probably never will.

2) You made a very good point about Daei when we play a strong team. When we play a strong team like Portugal, we will be defending most of the game, so we need a speedy striker in there for quick counter-attacks. Borhani is a perfect fit.



Another thing to worry about is Nekounam. He was poor today, and has not been in form for months. We can see the affect of the UAE league. This is very worrying

[P.Nima]

Borhani in, Daei out.
Borhani is getting better and better. He is fast, and is now has better finishes than Daei. Iran played better when Daei was subbed out, and everybody is talking about Daei and his experience.
But as you all know, no matter how bad Daei is, Branko will still have Daei in the starting 11

[Simorgh]

For the love of god, somebody please talk some sense into Branko regarding Daie. He CAN'T play anymore! Can't he see that?

[Darvish11]

We cannot continue with this strategy of sending long balls over the heads of the midfielders and defense; it simply doesnt work. This is not iranian soccer.

[Makaveli]

things i learned. we have a lot of weaknesses, which we can workj on. this is a good team and is 'tactic-pazeer'

most important however though: Kaabi does not deserve to be within a 50 mile radius of this team. I am so pissed, that i dont know what to say

[faraz]

hmm...well, the scoreline is GREAT, and we definitely deserved to win given the circumstances. When I saw that 5 minutes of extra time were added, I went crazy. That was just unnecessary, but all in all, it was a good morale boost for our team.

-a key point today was that the wings were constantly exposed, both on the right and left sides. They're goal was scored on a cross from the wing, and we didn't do much to stop them.

-Nekounam is deteriorating and Teymourian is slowly becoming the new Nekounam. He played just great today.

-the absence of Kia on that right side was heavily felt, and most balls (including our goal) came from the left where Nosrati was.

-our defence is increasingly worrying. Nosrati makes mistake after mistake after mistake, but his offensive contribution was not bad, with of course, the assist to Karimi who is a marvelous savior for our team.

-Daei...well...a completely poor showing by him. He should have been substituted well before (say, end of 1st half) with Kazemian as his replacement, or even Shojaei, who I was hoping to see much earlier.

-In the offensive zone, we have few problems. We are beginning to move the ball around really well, but defensively, a lot needs to be done.

So in conclusion, not a bad game, and we should have won. This was a great morale boost for our team, and we showed here that WE CAN compete with good European opposition. There is no doubt that Mexico and the rest of them are a little scared now.

[Doctor DOOM]

what can I say?

this game and TM's performance was just a continuation of its decline in quality, as it started 2 years back !

I know some ppl are ecstatic over the "score-line" ( and I admit, it shd have been 3-1 to Iran, as borhani's second goal was definitely not offside, and the penalty was totally unjustified just as the 5 minutes of injury time was unjustified ).

but when you look at the team's performance, you'll see how horrible we performed.

as for the guilty players, almost all played bad.

for me, the best player in TM was Bakhtiarizadeh , by a long mile.
in fact, make it "the only" good player we had.

but the worst things I saw in the game:

1- branko's incompetence is yet brought to the fore, as he selected a line up that had absolutely no width.

I think we all know how wrong zandi is for the left flank, as he was almost never seen on the left.
but on the right, yet again, another wrong decision by branko ( so what's new? ) to put teymoorian for kia !

this meant TM had absolutely no width and did nothing on the flanks.
which made defending against us that much easier.

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2- nosrati, despite his assist, didnt deserve to start.
when he is a defender, you must first evaluate him in his defensive duties.
and in that , he was frightfully bad.

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3- so was yahya.
if you bother to watch the game again, and could count the number of wrong passes by these two ( nosrati and yahya ) , you'd see how pathetic they performed.

at one point, TM looked like a team with only 9 players , playing against 13 croatians, as these two kept on passing the ball to the opposition !!
abysmal is not enough to describe it.

and lets not talk about the "saayeh"s performed by these two in missing the ball constantly !
pathetic.

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4- what's happened to rahman ?
I've never seen him so out of form !!
I'm worried.

same with nekounam, who was lost.
then again, so were the other 7-8 players like zandi, ....
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5- teymoorian was lost throughout the match.
why?
I dont know.
is he really that good? then he shd have done something.
he didnt.

or is he a victim of branko's stupid arrangement ?

either way his selection for this post was another fiasco in part of branko.


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7- no playmaker.
after karimi left, the team had absolutely NO-ONE to act as playmaker.
and it was rather obvious, as this idiot didnt bother with choosing another playmaker besides karimi.
( notice the thread on the same issue )


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8- just as many ppl said, a few names are included just to keep the critics quiet.
this laj baaz idiot has no design to use them, even in most dire situations.
names like enayati, sadeghi, talebloo, khatibi, .... .
all an eye wash for a bunch of naive, juvenile , starry-eyed teenagers who swallow whatever that's thrown in front of them !


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9- no team work.
no. let me say it again, coz some ppl may miss it.

ABSOLUTELY NO TEAM WORK.
not surprising, as branko has been shown to be totally incompetent in this department.
where are those who said "give him a few weeks and we'll see teamwork" ?
THIS is what you call teamwork?

PATHETIC !!!
DISGUSTING.


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a team with no flanks is like a duck with no wings.
ready to get shot !

is this a congenital deficiency in branko's mental make up, or is he deliberately trying to f**k up TM ?
I dont know.

all I know is that he's not helping the team in any way by cliping our wings.
when we have guys like madanchi ( pity he didnt have brains to invite mani'ee ) for the left and kazemian for the right ( in absence of kia ) , why shd he start with two central mids ( zandi & teymoorian ) ?

the result is what we saw: a team that didnt do diddly-sh*t from the wings !


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once again I saw branko's tendency in packing the team with defensive minded players .... and most horrible was that these players got in each other's way and impeded the team's movement.

nosrati, kaabi, yahya, sohrab, nekounam, teymoorian, madanchi ( who was kept at bay as left defender to help nosrati ), ... all packed in the center of the field like sardines !!
pathetic and idiotic.

basically an example of most terrible line up selection and substitution.
a trade mark of branko for the past 2 years.


this idiot has no coaching talent.
and whatever he had, he has forgotten.
if we fail, or under-achieve, he will be the only reason for it.

[Martin-Reza]

what can I say?

this game and TM's performance was just a continuation of its decline in quality, as it started 2 years back !

What a joke. We get a better result than Argentina and just aren't the first team to ever defeat Croatia on their own turf because of a Croatian referee and you talk like this.

People like you are the reason why Iranian football doesn't develop. Poor judgement paired with huge expectations.

Oh yes, and this again paired with an annoying inability to keep the messages short.

Worst of all is that you aren't just a crappy analyst but also a crappy fan. You're unable to take part in anything positive surrounding the team.

The sad part though is not your view on Iranian football, but that there are still people taking your messages seriously.

[gol_kuchik]

I believe today we had a wonderful show that things aren't in as bad of
shape as many tried to portray.

For one, having subed in 5 players our team still had coherency! In fact one
can argue our team got better and not worse after some of the starters got
subbed out. Contrast this not to 2 or three years ago but to Costa Rica
game. And any fair minded person will realize the vast improvement since.

The credit here goes to both players, but more importantly to cocahing which
has made this dramatic improvement.

I was surprisid that our wings on the offence were not very active as both
Madanchi and Kazemain have proved themselevs to be potent attackers.

We did get a bit lucky early on and after that on a few more occasions in
the first half with our poor defending. However, that was made up for with
the unlucky calls that went against us in the second half.

Now a bit about Daei and Borhani. Once again Borhani showed why inspite
of his age, he deserves to be in TM. Still, I am not sure Borhani can sustain
his game for 90 minutes. So the question is, would the team be better if
we use someone instead of Daei who can press and run for the first 65-70 min
and then bring in Borhani or will Daei suffice for the first 60 minutes?

We will find out for sure by the end of Bosnia game, but it doesn't seem like
Daei is up to the task.

[Hajagha]

1, We found our missing link in DM, Teymourian, he was just fantastic.

2, We found another great defender who can distribute the ball as well, he is a leader who talks and talks and still talks, Bakhtiari-zadeh.

3, Our defence performes as an orchestra now with some few individual mistakes, Nosrati particularly was great according to heavy critics. I am not worry about our defence.

4, We are extremely under perform with "out of form" Hashemian and "OLLLLLLLLLD" Daei. Believe me these two can not score no matter how many minutes we play.

4, We for some times played 4-3-2-1, and we played good enough.

5, Kazemian is not TM material, sorry Javad but truth hurts.

6, Shojai needs more experience, he is good, watch him.

7, Mirzapour, don't let some punches fool you, this guy makes us embraced in World stage.

8, Borhani was just fantastic, this is what we need to start with, in front of these two famous out of shape forwards we have now.

9, Madanchi was not good today, his lack of experience to keep the ball on the line in dying seconds cost us a penalty, he needs more experience, he is not ready.

10, Branko knows what he is doing, good job dude.

[BehzadB]

I actually think the game was a good game overall. I don't care about the score. But the game showed us a few good things. And a few bad ones.

I liked Teymourian. He fights well and has a good touch. He was bold and was not going to be pushed around. I like him.

I just can't see what Branko sees in Nosrati on the left. I know he is talented defender, but he is way below average when he is on the left and for god's sake, someone tell him not to carry the ball so much. ONE touch and pass it. Everytime he touches the ball you know he is going to loose it. I think he is far better than gol at the Center spot. Put someone else there on the LB, Mr. Branko.


Gol and kaabi are weak links. I think this Kaabi guy is going to give a few "sooti" in the WC. Long balls go passed him like there is no tomorrow. Gol is another guy that really worries me.

It was Great to see karimi in Action. It felt good.
hashemian is either still injured or he is simply frustrated with his position. Whatever it is (and I know he just came back from Injury) he better get over it soon. He had a bad game today.

If nekounam thinks there is spot for him reserved in Europe, he better think again. He needs to step it up. He had a bad "passing game" and a very bad "shooting game" today.

did I mention Teymourian was very good.

Shojaee and JK came in Late. Madanchi seemed a bit slow and a bit (dastpacheh). I wish he would be tried as the left back.

Borhani was OK. I liked how he , for a second, acted like a pro, when he got that lucky bounce. (he didn't just close his eyes and shoot).

Daie, well. Let's not even go there.

Overall it was a good test.

[Makaveli]

Gol and kaabi are weak links. I think this Kaabi guy is going to give a few "sooti" in the WC. Long balls go passed him like there is no tomorrow. Gol is another guy that really worries me.

right on the money

[faraz]

I don't see why there is such a big fuss about Kaebi. So he had one bad game, mind you, his partner and engine on that right, a certian Kia, was not present. With that being said, I still don't think he did THAT badly. Defensively, yes, long balls go over his head. That is not exactly his fault given his height.