Are we turning into a COUNTER-ATTACKING team?

[Doctor DOOM]

At least against decent and stronger opponents, is what we saw in Ulsan going to be the template for our the team is to be arranged and what tactics are to be employed? I seriously doubt we'd meet any weak teams in the WC for us to think we could dominate them from the get go and pressure them. Maybe we'd get lucky and get one lesser team. But chances are we'd still meet 2 stronger teams in the group.


Personally, if we manage to cover all bases and dot all the i's and cross all our t's in TEAM-defense (not just the defense line), against big teams (an inescapable eventuality at the WC), I wouldnt really mind seeing that template, but with a more dynamic set of players used.

For example, if we pick one of the best counter-attacking teams in the world as a model; Real Madrid, when playing against tougher, more dangerous teams like barca, they sit back and absorb pressure with layered defense. But the moment they get the ball is when they explode with speed and positioning. and need accurate, well rehearsed passes from deep to feed their runners on the flanks (usually ronaldo, demaria, ... etc etc)

The key issue is the PACE of their attacking players. That mean those players cant waste time trying to dribble ppl, or try to find the right foot to trap the ball or ... . Also they cant be knocked down or body-checked easily by their markers. At least not until they reach near the box or inside the box. But also guys who CAN SCORE, since the task may be left to them.


So I think CQ has to make it his mission to find at least 5-6 (subs included) suitable attacking players that can deliver these goods, especially the PACE.
RGN, I assume will be an integral part of the team.
Khalatbari's brilliant ball skills and pace makes him a serious pick too.
Dejagah needs no thought and will be one too.



other options that may fit into the picture?

gholami?
rezaei?
shojaei?
seyed salehi?
atashkadeh?
Jahanbakhsh?
sadeghiyan?
ansarifard?


CQ has his task cut out for him. That is if he wants to mold TM into a counter-attacking team.

[yashar_fasihnia]

the fact that we couldnt create a single scoring opportunity and a single shot on goal (except the korean defenders gift to us) during the korea game is really worrysome. had rahman ahmadi not made that miraculous double save or the korean defender not made that single mistake, things would have been so different right now.

the problem is not being a defensive or a counterattacking team, the problem is being a counter attacking team but not being able to create a single shot on goal against korea through counter attacks means we are gonna have problems in the worldcup defending for 90 minutes and hoping the opponents makes a back pass mistake.

i really think without dejagah and khalatbari, we will not be able to score at all. shojaei and jabbari should fight for the 3rd spot in midfield behind gucci. heydari and shojaei with the limited support they get from beygzadeh and montazeri behind them dont have enough pace and creativity to create chances on their own and our poor ball control and comibnation passing in the middle wont allow us to create chances against teams as good as korea or better.

plus our players are not even fit enough compared to europeans, south americans or africans, so creating counter attacking changes towards the end of game will be even more difficult

[Doctor DOOM]

I agree.
the fact that we had only RGN as the only pacy player was bad enough.
RGN was supported by jabbari, shojaei and heidari: one of whom is not very quick and is by no stretch of imagination a goal scorer (heidari), the second faded in and out of the game and against all that pacy either (Jabbari) and the third was more or less pathetic and big fat zero who never helped in pace or ball distribution or any physical challenges to win balls, obviously resulted in our worrysome stats of one attack.


if we have to set the line up for a counter attacking formation, we shd have at least 3 pacy front players and at least one who can bridge the gap between the def-mids and the front 2-3. lets say X. thus leaving the other 6-7 spots for defensive minded players (like 4 def's and 2 DM's + 1)
X has to be very quick in decision making, very accurate in passing and shd be able to fend off pressure on him and challenges from opponents so he could provide the transition pass.

if we take dejagah, RGN and Khalatbari as starters, who is to be the fellow who distributes the passes and helps in quick transition?
likely candidates?

[yashar_fasihnia]

that person would have to be either shojaei or jabbari.

shojaei has better abilities to carry the ball, hold it for a few seconds and make a decisive pass for counter attacks but he typically doesnt play this first touch passes but often starts dribbling himself and most of the time loses it.

jabbari on the other hand does play more decisive passes, however, he doesnt have the same technique to keep the ball for few seconds until some space is created by gucci, dejagah or khalatbari and can get out muscled easily.

third option is ofcourse mohammad nouri..

hence, the role of nekounam and ando becomes more crucial in counter attacks. or even the full backs supports for counters. for example, heydari and pouladi can offer much more in counter attacks rather than montazeri and beygzadeh but the question is do we want to sacrifice some of our defensive stability for this?

[KeonKish]

CQ MUST make more use of Khalatbari, he won us uzbekistan and opened the gates of lebanon in the two games he was started, but CQ for some reason didnt play him against korea...

Khalatbari is THE counter attack player

if we use a counter attack with gucci and khalatbari and dejagah we will have a really diverse attacking line.


so yes, if we choose to become a counter attacking team, we can not use people who are slow in physical speed and mental speed( shojaei), players like dejagah heydari and khalatbari will be key!


and teymourian and jabbari are excellent with long balls....... so we have a decent chance.

[Martin-Reza]

It annoyed me for years that we always looked unable to execute counter attacks well while we were rather good in controlling matches.

Counter attacking could be the key to a successful World Cup campaign, considering the strength of most teams there.

I think most of our players fit such a strategy very well and I'm amazed Queiroz seems to he the first in decades to emphasize on this.

[Doctor DOOM]

I had totally forgotten about Md Nouri.He shd be a viable option for the role. Hopefully we'll see a more open mind from CQ with respect to picking his starters.

among other players who know how to feed long balls to their players are Hadadifar and Ebrahimi, who have shown it countless times in zob and sepahan. And the fact that these two can do double-duty as defensive players, is certainly an advantage for them over others.
at least they cant be easily bumped off the ball like shojaei. They also dont waste time focusing on silly, meaningless dribbles like shojaei as well, as seconds and mili-seconds become very decisive and crucial in counters. and if you waste at least a second or two in dribbling or trying to fend off the challenge, you gift the defense enough time to get reorganized. so unless shojaei changes his game TOTALLY and becomes a totally different player, I'm afraid he just doesnt fit that type of player needed for this job. (cant teach an old dog new tricks)

as said before, his only use is basically limited to games where we are already leading and we need someone to kill off the pace and momentum of the game. and with insisting on dumb dribbling, he attracts fouls. in other words, his uses are extremely limited.


I am not ready to say we have become a counter-attacking team yet. But we see what CQ is trying to enforce, which is a double layered defense with an eye to runners (tashkent and ulsan games).
yes, just 2 incidents dont make a rule. But given how he approched the tough game in ulsan, I wouldnt be surprised if he tried the same against the group's top 2 teams also.
therefore, it makes sense to have a proper strategy and set of moves for those two games.

[KeonKish]

^hadadifar isnt very strong physically and hes in quite poor form, however I paid specific to ebrahmi in his games this season, especially the ACL ones( they are a better gauge of quality), and I like his style of play, he defends very well and shows great energy and actually has great scoring capability.

[Martin-Reza]

I agree Shojaei is not the best option for a quick transition game. But I think it is a mistake to solely rely on counter attacks. If we are only trying to play the deadly pass, we will end up with many quick turnovers and be under even bigger pressure.

Also we must not forget the general importance of height. We need at least 5-6 players with considerable strength in areal duels on the field. The more the better. So even if it sounds attractive to replace a few players from the most recent lineup on first glance, the disadvantages might exceed the advantages if we fail to see the whole picture and only concentrate on one or very few aspects of the game.

[zereshk-ali]

I think some of you guys hit the nail on the head. After watching the game again I have to say we were extremely fortunate to win it. We created nothing, and caused no danger on the break to South Korea apart from the one mistake. You cannot expect to win games with one opportunity without a huge amount of fortune.

The biggest improvement Queiroz has brought to the team is the improved defensive stability which has previously undermined any attempts to play a counter attacking style. However, when we did get an opportunity to break we lost the ball far too easily. There was over a dozen occasions when a rushed, hacked clearance, fear of taking responsibility by dribbling to keep possession when under only a little bit of pressure, or a wrong pass in midfield gave up the opportunity to keep the ball and break. While most of our players were guilty of this, Nekounam was the most disappointing in the Korea game as he was the one we used to rely on to do this.

The pressure on the defence as a result of not being able to threaten the opponents on the break was huge - they can continue to commit more men forwards knowing there is no threat from us. It will not work against better opposition than Korea, who resorted to many aimless balls pumped into the box.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ well, playing with 10 men does that to your team!!






@ martin:

even if height is the issue, which I assume you point at heading ability, then shojaei isnt the answer. he cant head the ball to save his life!

so basically if we choose pace, he isnt the answer.
if we choose height, he isnt.
if we choose physicality, he isnt.
That's why I said he has very limited uses.


but I agree that we need height too. That's why in my original post I included the likes of Gholami & seyed salehi (and hopefully ghazi will get more playing time to show he deserves the call), both of whom have decent pace and can participate in counters.


and just to clarify, I didnt say a "defensive" team. I said "counter attacking" team. there's a world of difference between the two.
If we want to be merely a defensive team, parking the bus, then we might as well allow uzbeks to take our place and watch the WC on TV. That will not do.

^hadadifar isnt very strong physically and hes in quite poor form, however I paid specific to ebrahmi in his games this season, especially the ACL ones( they are a better gauge of quality), and I like his style of play, he defends very well and shows great energy and actually has great scoring capability.

you need to update your views on hadadifar.
yesterday he had two great assists in zob's 4 goals win. and he's been showing pretty good form in league games in last few weeks of IPL. he has more or less returned from his injury and bad form.

besides, we have lowered the bar on "strength and physicality" to such low levels with our insistence on shojaei, that almost ANY player can at least match that. let alone hadadifar who surpasses shojaei

[zereshk-ali]

and just to clarify, I didnt say a "defensive" team. I said "counter attacking" team. there's a world of difference between the two.
If we want to be merely a defensive team, parking the bus, then we might as well allow uzbeks to take our place and watch the WC on TV.

I'm afraid that's pretty much all we saw in the last game. If we're parking the bus against Qatar and Korea then we may well become the ugliest team to watch in Brazil.

I don't think counter attacking football suits us - we don't have the players with the ability to make the right decision at pace. Germany have perfected that. I think our best chance is to press high, select more attacking midfielders with the ability to keep the ball and try to control the game. The best game we played in 2006 was when we did this against Mexico.

[Doctor DOOM]

^ against teams like germany, spain, holland, argentina, brazil, ...?
we know we'll get one of these as seed 1 team.
and I doubt we'd have any slouches for the seed 2 team which most probably be another european top team (france, england, portugal, ....).

I just dont see us fare well if we try to press high. we'd get slaughtered.
That's why I say we better work on our counterattacking tactics and moves for these 2 games.

our only hope is we get a favorable 3rd team that we would have a reasonable chance of winning. and in this game we can afford a more open attacking attitude.

it all depends on the draw though




speaking of mexico game, it brings the matter of a big team having an off day. mexico did have an off day and if we showed a litttle more guts, who knows .. maybe we could have got a draw. But the opening was there. the mexico that came on the pitch was by no means unstoppable. but thanks to some gutless strategizing and brain-freeze by branko during the 2nd half, we lost the game!!!
so we still can hope for an off day for one of the top seeds.

[KeonKish]

^ well, playing with 10 men does that to your team!!






@ martin:

even if height is the issue, which I assume you point at heading ability, then shojaei isnt the answer. he cant head the ball to save his life!

so basically if we choose pace, he isnt the answer.
if we choose height, he isnt.
if we choose physicality, he isnt.
That's why I said he has very limited uses.


but I agree that we need height too. That's why in my original post I included the likes of Gholami & seyed salehi (and hopefully ghazi will get more playing time to show he deserves the call), both of whom have decent pace and can participate in counters.


and just to clarify, I didnt say a "defensive" team. I said "counter attacking" team. there's a world of difference between the two.
If we want to be merely a defensive team, parking the bus, then we might as well allow uzbeks to take our place and watch the WC on TV. That will not do.





you need to update your views on hadadifar.
yesterday he had two great assists in zob's 4 goals win. and he's been showing pretty good form in league games in last few weeks of IPL. he has more or less returned from his injury and bad form.

besides, we have lowered the bar on "strength and physicality" to such low levels with our insistence on shojaei, that almost ANY player can at least match that. let alone hadadifar who surpasses shojaei

for someone at haddadifars level assisting in a relegation play off isnt impressive at all, its like beating a 5 year old at basketball....as far as I remember I recall many members pointing out how terrible he was against oman, I could be completely wrong, but I still dont think hes at the level to replace jabbari or mohhamad nouri.

[Doctor DOOM]

have you actually watched his game and seen his passing/assists or goals, ... or are you merely basing your opinion on zob's table ranking?

who was good against Oman? not many. that was an awkward game made even more awkward by lack of coordination of players and constant changing of the roster. surely these things shd occur to us before we comment on games.

either way, you have your right to believe whatever you want.
I just have to repat when we have lowered our standards and expectations from our international football by stats like 2-3 correct passes and 4-5 turnovers and 2-3 losses in challenges, .. then almost half of the IPL players can fit into this TM picture.