Things learned from Iran vs Croatia [Discuss Here]

[BehzadB]

The Good:
Andranik Teymorian
The Bad:
Nosrati (when defending): The biggest Sooti in our defense.
Nekonam. As expected, he is in his decline and players like Teymorian play waaaaay better than him. He is slow, loses the ball alot and his passing isnt what it used to be.
The Ugly:
Ali Daie (Hashemian will play better if he isnt there)
This guy is an embarrasment to our team. His football finished in 2002 and he is still continuing.
Imagine Iran playing with this lineup:
------Hashemian-----Karimi-------
--Zandi------Mobali--------Mahdavikia
------------Teymorian--------------
--Nosrati--Rezaie---Golmo----Kabi--
--------------Mirzapor---------------

I agree with the good and the bad and the ugly. Specialy the ugly. But how can you leave Nkounam out.

Teymourian had to put it all on. Nekounam already knew he has a starting spot, he was more worried about not getting injured. And that's normal in such games so close to the WC. The croatians were taking it easy too.

[Hadi]

behzad jan,

I always think the most important spot in TM is the defensive Midfielder. Remember Bagheri and Estili in the old days. I am demanding such play from our DM. Maybe it is too much to ask.

But I think Nekonam has lost his tunnel vision. He wasnt aggressive and he didnt play quick enough (thinking and passing). And what you said is another reason why I am worried abbout Javad. He seems not motivated at all.
Anyways, I hope he returns to his old self soon.

[yashar_fasihnia]

This croatia team that I saw yesterday, did not look like a team that has any chance of wining anything at the WC.
They might win the WC, but they did not show up against Iran.

yea, they had a poor display yesterday, the croatian fans admit it themselves, actually, their defense was poor, their offense and midfield was good, but they couldnt convert.

a team that can beat argentina on neutral ground and austria in asutria 4-1 and tie brazil is good enough to be considered a contender. their qualiying round scores were equally brilliant.

all this cant be coincidence.

[yashar_fasihnia]

yashar jan, that is becoz when we know it is zandi who is in front of him, zareh will be the only player on the left side to take care of both offense and defense.
so he will have both duties.
this is not to say I am happy with nosrati's offensive game . far from it.
some may say he "assisted" the goal.
the way I saw it, that was an futile attempt in shotting for the goal, which fortunately found its way to karimi.
secondly, nosrati is not exactly known for his ball control, and when we have midfielders better than him, then he has no business to be in that place.
( yes, I know some will say he aided the goal. but in principle, he shdnt have been there )
so both nosrati and zareh pretty much fail in offense ( excpet heading by nosrati ), and both are weak in defense.
now, when we have players like sadeghi who time and again sit on the bench while these two f**k up ball after ball, then you cant blame me for questioning mental capability of branko.
on zareh:
he could be used as an out-n-out defender IF we have a good left winger who STAYS ON THE LEFT and takes care of the job.
zandi?
not in a million years.
madanchi? I dont know.
Mani'ee would have been a good option.

1)i agree with u, i kinda think too that nosrati didnt really wanna pass the ball to karimi, but watever it was, thanx god it happened and thanx nosrati too.

2)zare doesnt suck in defense, i think he played his defensive role very well, specially in his latter games for TM. his offense however, is pitiful.

3)sadeghi has his own problems, like careless fouling and getting yellow and red cards and even giving away penalties (all of which could be seen against mediocre IPL teams and semi prof forwards and refrees, imagine wat will happen with Dr, merk being the refree and christian ronaldo tryin to dribble past sadeghi). besides, sadeghi isnt experienced enough to be able to handle this pressure, a player like madanchi who had played for TM before, who was bursting with self esteem specially recently with all his wonderful goals and support, was so "dastpache", i doubt sadeghi would do any better.

4)ur right that the LB player has both offensive and defensive duties but this is the duty of every fullback in a 4-4-2 diamond midfield formation. the midfielders are supposed to play close together to hold ball possession in the filed while the 2 full backs make runs along the line. this is the general rule.
now wat I FEEL branko is doing and is quite sensible is due to the absence of a perfect fullback in iran, whether RB or LB, branko has divided the job between the 2 flanks.

The offense can be done by the offensive duo of kia-kaabi, the more defensive role will be given to the left flank. and this is why i am, and i know many others in here, were satisfied with zare, cos he was performing his defensive duties well, and that was wat actually mattered. if he did anything more than that, it was a bonus to us and a thumbs up to him.

for this reason, due to zare's out of form, and nosrati's high error rate and inability to handle pressure,specially in LB position, i wouldnt mind seeing sohrab getting a try there or even teymourian. i was impressed by both of them and i think they both are very calm, yet professional (compared to iran's standards) players and both can help improve TM defense a lot.
however because of sohrab's better physique, less speed, lower dribbling abilities, more experience and better nose for goal, i would prefer him to play DM next to nekounam incase branko wants to use 2 DMs and play teymourian as LB. i think teymourian can play a similar game to that of zare's in LB position, only better. its really hard for me to choose one of them but i think it wont be a bad idea to experiment atleast one or better both of them, as DMs or/and LBs. Something like this..

-----------------Mirzapour-----------------
-----------yahya----------rezai--------
----kaabi-----------------------teymourian--
-----------nekounam----sohrab---------
-----kia------------------------zandi----
--------------karimi--------------------
-------------------hashemian----------

however, on the other hand, if bakhtiarizade plays LB, then the advantage is our back line can dynamically yet temporarily change to a 3 back system with yahya-rahman-sohrab incase of counter attacks or scenarios where kaabi has moved forward.i really dunno, but i seriously want to see more of bakhtiarizade and teymourian because i feel they can help our defense much more than nosrati!
also, i feel teymourian is more energetic and "bazi kharabkon"(a player who destroys the opponents game plan, before it was alavi for us) than sohrab, sohrab is more of a defender who clears away a mess, while teymourian creates the mess!

-----------------Mirzapour-----------------
-----------yahya----------rezai--------
----kaabi-----------------------sohrab--
--------nekounam----teymourian---------
-----kia------------------------zandi----
--------------karimi--------------------
-------------------hashemian----------


to me sohrab reminds me of demichellis while teymourian of hargreaves. they are both good players who can help in defense and sometimes in offense, its upto the coach to weigh the pros and cons of each and analyse the situation and make a decision.
i think both these formations are good enough to handle the opponents pressure by controlling the midfield and having a strong defense, like against portugal.
for offensive purposes, we could remove maybe teymourian and bring in borhani, daei or even a midfielder like madanchi or kazemian.

5)i think branko had a reason he left our manei, and when mansour khan went to the camp and saw the training with his own eyes, he too approved the fact that manei was very weak in the trainings. i think i will go with those who have seen the players live with their own naked eyes, rather than those who have seen the players from behind a TV screen or just take a look at a statistics table which mind u, can quite often be misleading.

[kasai]

I learned that Nosrati is better with TM than with his club. He will be a benefit against Borgetti on the set plays.

I learned that Mirzapour can play 94 solid minutes of mistake free football and still make a stupid mistake that makes his performance questionable.

I learned that Karimi is healthy and should be our best hope for the WC

I learned that Daei is basically only useful on set plays and his time is up.

I learned that Borhani has the speed to make a difference on counter attacks. Should be useful against Portugal.

[Doctor DOOM]

Ok, I just watched the game once more.

And this time, I watched for certain players and patterns.

1- let me start with "Mr. Wrong", nosrati.
This guy didn’t deserve to start this game, nor even play in it.
Some of his mistakes were so monumental, they really frightened me.
Before anything, I must say most of his mistakes have nothing to do with the left side, and they are borne out of his lack of abilities, irrespective of the side he plays.

From his silly turn overs, and wrong passes. If you count his passes, I am sure his wrong ones will overpower his useful ones.

The guy cant even stop and trap the ball. Many times he attempts it, just to kick the ball in front of an opponent !

So why on earth he was kept in the game is just another wonder to be filed in record books.

If this game was any indication, I say nosrati doesn’t deserve to be in the WC altogether. And if branko has the audacity to play him, he will be one of the major failures for Iran, and his game WILL hurt TM.

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

2- I don’t really know what ppl saw in Teymoorian's game, coz no matter how hard I concentrated on him, I didn’t see anything worthwhile to write about.

At best, his performance was an average one.

In fact the error-prone Nekounam did more influential things than him.

Considering all the hype around him ( kicked up by branko and gang ), I wasn’t convinced at all.

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

3- zandi is useless on EITHER flank. Not only the left, but right also.

He seems to be comfortable for the center of the pitch, but flanks is a big no no, for him.

His freekicks and set pieces?
What a joke!
And to think we had Mobaali to take care of set pieces and branko didn’t call him up !

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

4- yahya:
He was roo-sefeed only by nosrati.
Only nosrati made more mistakes and turn overs than him.
He is slow to the point of desperation.


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

5- Borhani's off-side ( wrongly called ) goal is proof enough that in front we need a speedy forward to play alongside either daei or VH.
As both daei and VH's styles are similar, it is stupid to go on playing them simultaneously.
Then again, it is branko we are talking about !

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

6- Daei shd have been out by half time.
And this shd be followed during the WC.
This, from one of his staunchest fans.

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

7- why our players are not taught properly, on the matter of conceding corners ? when they can easily kick the ball towards the side lines and out, why do they concede corners?
Idiotic.

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

8- unnecessary dribbling and passing inside and around our 18 yards !
Shdnt the players be told not to do such things?
They are exactly ronaldinho or zidane to have such control over the ball !!!

Stupid !

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

9- madanchi showed his inexperience, during the last minute, when he had the ball and instead of keeping possession by either passing back, or taking it to the corners, he stupidly lobbed the ball into the middle ( hail mary style ) !
And that ball ended up in the rahman-mirza fiasco and the goal, subsequently.

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


10- and finally, this is why I will not remove the WIMP tag on branko's face:

At one point, ( start of the second half ) we had 7 defensive players out of 10 out-field players!!

Rahman, kaabi, yahya, nosrati, sohrab, nekounam, teymoorian !

All of which spells: Branko is still a WIMP.

[morti]

hardafe post mikoni man bayad ghorboon sadaghet beram great post again m8