where are the branko spporters now?

[khabalood]

who is willing to defend branko and his chicken strategy now?

[Mansoor]

I supported branko and I still do. I don't defend his mistakes. He could make a difference and he didn't. Unlike some unfair approaches where they bash the coach when we lose, and give credit "only" to players when we win, I believe both the coaches and the players should be credited for the wins, and both be blamed for the loses. Branko made mistakes in this game, so were the players.

[Under Lahaf]

khabalood jan your point is well taken but is it really branko's fault that mirzapour can't play? is it his fault that our *main players aren't fit? *(excluding daei which i fully agree with you)

[Mansoor]

We failed today. Our coach did, our players did, even our fans did. Only a "non-existing" 5000 fans????????????? The stadium was overtaken by Mexicans! and with all these Iranian immigrants in Europe??? We failed in every department.

[Under Lahaf]

5000?????????? we got so many iranians in germany and only 5000 showed up? vaghan keh...

[khabalood]

khabalood jan your point is well taken but is it really branko's fault that mirzapour can't play? is it his fault that our *main players aren't fit? *(excluding daei which i fully agree with you)

Lahafi jaan, for starters...

1. replace Mirzapour with Talebloo who is a much better goaltender.

2. Daei should have been replaced early into the first half.

3. Karimi should never have been taken out.

4. If Karimi really needed to be taken out he should have been replaced with the only other OM we have in our squad.

5. playing purely defensive when the score is tied and not even attempting for the win. Even Trinidad and Tobago put up a greater fight for the win than tm did, and they were facing a team that far outclassed them unlike us.

6. using two defensive midfielders in a game which we could have dominated had we played an offensive strategy.

In my opinion and the apparently the opinions of many analysts in Canada we simply gave away points in a game which we could have won, had a few changes been made.

[yashar_fasihnia]

everybody makes mistakes, every coach makes mistakes, every player makes mistakes! branko is no worldclass coach, but he is a decent one, and FOR SURE, THE BEST IRAN CAN HAVE AT THE MOMENT!

nobody here said branko is flawless, nobody here said branko doesnt make mistakes, nobody even said he is worldclass, but people fail to see the fact that this is all we can afford, not only money wise but socially and politically as well!

but ofcourse, im pissed at everyone today!
FIRST OF ALL, WHO GAVE THAT USELESS & UNNECESSARY BACK PASS TO MIRZAPOUR??? i think it was nekounam, he usually has a habit of giving back passes a lot. whoever he was, for heavens sake doesnt he know that mirzapour has problems in kicking the ball?? why the hell did he pass back specially since there wasnt much pressure on him! on top of that, mirzpaour makes a bad clearance! even worse, rahman rezai cant stop and clear a ball in time after years of playing in SERIE A & worse of all, the mexican player was unmarked and there was nobody to cover up rezai!
GOD! HOW MANY MISTAKES IN 10 SECONDS! if any one, just one of these players hadnt made a mistake, this ball wouldnt have become a goal and there was a high chance we wouldnt concede the third goal either!
teflak nosrati, enghad az nosrati bad goftim, vali baghiye bazikona reedan!

Again, on the second goal, why was the mexican player TOTALLY UNMARKED in the penalty area???

thirdly, why didnt branko sub out daei?? he hardly touched the ball, i dont think he touched the ball more than 10 times in the whole 90 minutes!! that means one touch every 9 minutes approx! WTF??
specially in second half, when branko sees that our midfield is nonexistant, he SHOULD HAVE REMOVED DAEI AND BROUGHT IN A MIDFIELD PREFERABLY SHOJAEI TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE MIDFIELD AND IRAN COULD PLAY WITH a 4-2-3-1 WITH HASHEMIAN UPFRONT, MADANCHI ON LEFT & KIA ON RIGHT!

Fourthly, how is branko at fault if rahman rezai (irans best defender) cant stop a ball and clear it in time? how is he at fault if his goalkeeper doesnt clear the ball properly! ofcourse, he was at fault for not trying to change the game in the second half although it was obvious mexico was TOTALLY dominating! but it wasnt branko alone who was at fault!

Fifthly, im sure everybody agrees with me that first half, iran played AMAZINGLY and were even more dangerous than mexico! that was the true iran, and that was wat branko has produced! if u really wanna see branko's work, then look at first half!
second half, could be a variety of reasons:
1)absence of karimi (who wasnt very impressive probably cos of injury)
2)unfit mahdavikia (whose unfitness & uncordination was covered up by the rest of the players like kaabi, nekounam, hashemian and teymourian)
3)nekounam got a yellow and had to be more careful with tackles
4)teymourian and even nekounam and some of our other players were tired! teymourian and nekounam were the heart of the team and once they disappeared in the second half, the whole team disapparead!
5)or some wrong analysis or something by branko!

but in general, i see a silver lining in this dark cloud! if iran can raise their hopes again, if they can play like they did in the first half, and considering that they are now in a DO OR DIE SITUATION (iran is best known for getting results in such situations), we still have a decent chance! watever happened is over, and its no use crying over spilt milk. we have to look back at our mistakes, learn from them & correct them, raise our spirits & believe in our selves and go to portugal. the good thing i saw about portugal was that unlike mexico, portugal and angola both played a more open game than mexico and this gives more space for our talented players to play their game and show their skills!

and lastly, i think teymourian was one of iran's best players today. he played better than nekounam(who played quite well as well) in the first half and i think if he shows the same performance in the next 2 games, he can get offers from decent european teams!

[Ali Chicago]

If only Branko did not paly names and had higher aims

Yashar jaan, I read your post and would like to ask you a question. How come is it that Teymorian is playing so well and the so called "European Based" players dont' perform that well.

I think the reason is the "Hunger Factor". I bet you if Khatibi was there, if Shojai was there, if not because of the "honor of wearing the national Jersey in front of the whole world", for getting a fat contract in Europe they would have run like crazy.

The fact that Mirza can't clear the ball isn't Brnako's fault, but the fact that after 4 years working with him, he still can't clear the ball and still Branko chooses him to be the starter is Branko's fault.

Leaders are given resposiblities and authorities and they are responsible for their decisions. Branko made a decision for Mirza to be number one and he has to live with the consequences. I am not going to even talk about Dai (which seems to be waste of breath). When the whole Abu Ghuraib thing came up, Ramsfeld was not there to torture those Iraqies but in US everybody held him responsible for the actions of US forces. That is what leadership is you get authority and make decisions and if they are bad you have to answer and are responsible.

My problem with Branko is his attitude. As a matter of fact it seems it is general attitude in the whole Eastern European Soccer world. To do ok and decent, never risk and settle for mediocer. It seems even the best Eastern European teams (Romania in 94, Czech, Poland) although they were great they never risk it all out (they didn't beleive they can and deserve to win it all).

How can a team goes to the dressing room and come out so flat? Until when we will witness names on the paper play and not the hugry generation of next generation. Rooney is on the bench, Balack is on the Bench, Borgeti is pulled out when performance is sub par. In our team, if Karimi has one leg he probably will start so is Kia, and don't even dare to talk about Dai.
Bottom line, Branko is not the man of the crucial days. We missed a chance to get Mexico on a sub par day and after a 1-0 vicotry over Angola Portugal will come for a kill.
As a coach, you demand excellence not ok peroformance, great leaders and coaches breed that culture. Branko doesn't see that far and obviously hasn't been able to create that atmosphere and culture in the team. I am a cocah myself and by no means I compare myself to Branko or likes of his, but I read a lot about coaching. One of the guys I read a lot about is Anson and Stephan Kwach (Ajax legendry coach in 1970s) and Reynos Michele. You probably have not heard about Anson. He used to coach US women national team. He is the guy who was the founder of the Tarhill girls program in Universtiy of North Carolina in USA. Tarhills have dominated the girls NCAA and US collage and 90% of women national us players come from NC Tarhills.
I read his book and it is amazing how he talks about coaching at this level isn't about technique or tactic any more. It is about creating that goal and selling it to the players. Making them beleive and feel that goal. All psychological stuff. How to establish a one on one relationship with players and deal with their fears, encourage them. Brnako yesterday faild to do this. Maybe some other day he will, yesterday he didn't seem to be in control (based on couple of shots I saw from him on TV).

Not only he did not do any of the above mentionmed, he seems to inject more caution or fear on the team. Probably he was more afraid of 8-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia by Germany in 2002. It was a possibility but those who don't risk won't gain anything.

God even my wife after the 40th minutes said "Oh, Iran scored a goal and it seems they don't run anymore". I said it is probably beacuse they want to make sure no score until the end of the first half and second half will be different like the early 40 minutes of the first half. It seems she omenously was right. It seems the attitude was we scored a goal against mexico and let's all bunch up in front of our goal "mabada " god forbid Mexican socre a goal.

[Amirza]

Mansoor and Under Lahaf
with all due respect - your defending Branko is beyond comprehension. I for one consider the biggest problem with Branko to be lack of balls. He is fine with the role of a puppet coach that he is. How can you even begin to Justify the fact that Daei was not subbed ???? how ??? just think about it - a Daei who is now claimed was even hurt was not subbed - despite not appearing anywhere near the ball more than twice in the full match. No guys the issue is not coach's or player error - it's far far beyond...

[Mansoor]

Mansoor and Under Lahaf
with all due respect - your defending Branko is beyond comprehension. I for one consider the biggest problem with Branko to be lack of balls. He is fine with the role of a puppet coach that he is. How can you even begin to Justify the fact that Daei was not subbed ???? how ??? just think about it - a Daei who is now claimed was even hurt was not subbed - despite not appearing anywhere near the ball more than twice in the full match. No guys the issue is not coach's or player error - it's far far beyond...

I don't understand why this impression suddenly has struck many people to relate the issue of supporting TM & Branko with the Daei issue. Again, read what I said. I support Branko but I don't defend his mistakes. He did make couple of mistakes in that game but I am not gonna ask for his head. The first half of that game was not coached by "nirooye gheib". I have seen his capability, and the first half against a team that defeated Brazil and many big teams was simply superb.

[yashar_fasihnia]

Yashar jaan, I read your post and would like to ask you a question. How come is it that Teymorian is playing so well and the so called "European Based" players dont' perform that well.
I think the reason is the "Hunger Factor". I bet you if Khatibi was there, if Shojai was there, if not because of the "honor of wearing the national Jersey in front of the whole world", for getting a fat contract in Europe they would have run like crazy.
The fact that Mirza can't clear the ball isn't Brnako's fault, but the fact that after 4 years working with him, he still can't clear the ball and still Branko chooses him to be the starter is Branko's fault.
Leaders are given resposiblities and authorities and they are responsible for their decisions. Branko made a decision for Mirza to be number one and he has to live with the consequences. I am not going to even talk about Dai (which seems to be waste of breath). When the whole Abu Ghuraib thing came up, Ramsfeld was not there to torture those Iraqies but in US everybody held him responsible for the actions of US forces. That is what leadership is you get authority and make decisions and if they are bad you have to answer and are responsible.
My problem with Branko is his attitude. As a matter of fact it seems it is general attitude in the whole Eastern European Soccer world. To do ok and decent, never risk and settle for mediocer. It seems even the best Eastern European teams (Romania in 94, Czech, Poland) although they were great they never risk it all out (they didn't beleive they can and deserve to win it all).
How can a team goes to the dressing room and come out so flat? Until when we will witness names on the paper play and not the hugry generation of next generation. Rooney is on the bench, Balack is on the Bench, Borgeti is pulled out when performance is sub par. In our team, if Karimi has one leg he probably will start so is Kia, and don't even dare to talk about Dai.
Bottom line, Branko is not the man of the crucial days. We missed a chance to get Mexico on a sub par day and after a 1-0 vicotry over Angola Portugal will come for a kill.
As a coach, you demand excellence not ok peroformance, great leaders and coaches breed that culture. Branko doesn't see that far and obviously hasn't been able to create that atmosphere and culture in the team. I am a cocah myself and by no means I compare myself to Branko or likes of his, but I read a lot about coaching. One of the guys I read a lot about is Anson and Stephan Kwach (Ajax legendry coach in 1970s) and Reynos Michele. You probably have not heard about Anson. He used to coach US women national team. He is the guy who was the founder of the Tarhill girls program in Universtiy of North Carolina in USA. Tarhills have dominated the girls NCAA and US collage and 90% of women national us players come from NC Tarhills.
I read his book and it is amazing how he talks about coaching at this level isn't about technique or tactic any more. It is about creating that goal and selling it to the players. Making them beleive and feel that goal. All psychological stuff. How to establish a one on one relationship with players and deal with their fears, encourage them. Brnako yesterday faild to do this. Maybe some other day he will, yesterday he didn't seem to be in control (based on couple of shots I saw from him on TV).
Not only he did not do any of the above mentionmed, he seems to inject more caution or fear on the team. Probably he was more afraid of 8-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia by Germany in 2002. It was a possibility but those who don't risk won't gain anything.
God even my wife after the 40th minutes said "Oh, Iran scored a goal and it seems they don't run anymore". I said it is probably beacuse they want to make sure no score until the end of the first half and second half will be different like the early 40 minutes of the first half. It seems she omenously was right. It seems the attitude was we scored a goal against mexico and let's all bunch up in front of our goal "mabada " god forbid Mexican socre a goal.

ahgaye ali chicago, thanx for the nice and wise post, i thoroughly enjoyed reading it and i must say, i agree with u on many points. but there are certain other things that we shouldnt forget.

1)yes, teymourian is hungry, and maybe kia is not, but guess wat, kia is a professional, well built, well experienced, player with good stamina and plays on the highest level of international football. teymourian lacks all this, however, he has his own plus points like u said. i have always said this, and i say it today, again, everybody, whether branko or hiddink, whether daei or ronaldo and whether mirzapour or cech, have their own plus and minus points. but in the end, when it comes to the decision making, u have to weigh the positive and the negative points and make ur decision BASED ON UR OWN POINT OF VIEW! maybe branko thought that in such a crucial worldcup game, we need to rely on experience. whether he was right or wrong, whether the reason for our loss was this or not, is another story.
wat i am saying is everybody has their own perspectives and reasons and branko is no different. maybe and i say MAYBE branko's perspective on mexico's game was wrong but there have been many other times it has been right.

2)many people, mostly iranians ourselves tend to overestimate ourselves and have high expectations, much more than and delusional than reality. i have said this again, with just talent and gheyrat, there isnt much we can do! our country has football problems from the roots, roots which are caused by economic, sociological, political & psychological factors!
my best example, which i disagree with u is that u said if our players were tired after the first half, its branko's fault because he had them for 4 years! at first glance, ur words seem right but when u think about it, this is a national team branko is leading not a club team where he has his players available to him 24/7 throuhgout the year! if u remember, until this 1 month worldcup camp, branko never had much time with out players for the previous national games. physical fitness and built and many other things are expected of the clubs not the national team. AFC regards our league as SEMI PRO and maybe they are right considering our "amazing" results in ACL even against teams from UAE, kuwait & uzbekistan!
for ur information ali jan, i think one major reason we failed in the second half was our players exhaustion. our legionaires were all coming back from injuries and not 100% match fit, so ofcourse, this will affect their game, (inspite of this, i think hashemian ran a lot and gave it all he could) and our IPL players werent capable of playing like that anymore. if u notice, the major reason our team "ghadam be ghadam ba mexic harekat kard" was because of enkounam & teymourians amazing performance in the midfield. kia and karimi didnt do much! but in the second half, when these 2 guys got tired, iran's midfield totally disappeared! im not at all saying branko didnt do mistakes, i too was really pissed at him for not subbing out daei, by half time and not subbing in shojaei to add one more player to our midfield and try to control the game, but im saying, branko is just the tip of this vicious chain of soccer related problems in our country, and many tend to judge quickly and blame him for everything.

just one thing to make u ponder on, before majid jalali became saba battery coach, he always had some criticisms about daei and that he shouldnt play the full game etc, but once he became saba coach, he said, daei is our best player, daei should play, bla bla.
my point is, and this is something very clear, our country has a lot of corruption and mafia business. u and me here dont know wats exactly going on behing the closed curtains but u and me both know in iran, it only takes a 1 minute telephone call from higher authorities and ur name is not ali_chicago anymore! its so simple. now i dont wanna create rumours or anything, but wat im saying is i think there are influences in our football and TM just like there is in any other department and ministry in Iran. unfortunately, neither branko nor any other coach or player has or can even have the guts to say it. plz, dont temme, this shows branko is a wimp because he is hiding the truth cos we all know nobody in his place would reveal the truth either!

i was wondering, why is ali abadi, muawene reyis jumhoor who btw is the head of ministry of sports & IS THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF DADKHAN IN THE CAMP IN GERMANY?? dont temme to give TM roohiye. i dont think clashes between 2 authorities in TM can give any kind of roohiye!

this constant interference in any coaches work can be frustrating specially since there is nothing he can do about it JOZ KHAFE SHODAN & TAHAMOL KARDAN! on top of this, he has his other problems like staying away from family, followin the islamic rules and cultures, language barrier, problems with media and fans, not being able to walk on the street to go to a restaurant in peace, etc! put urself in his shoes, its not the same circumstances ur having in USA with all the facilities and professional and well budgeted coaching job!

3)im a supporter of branko for 2 reasons:
First, i think he is one of the best possible choices out of our candidates. this is us, this is wat we can afford given our political,economical,social circumstances in todays world! Its not like we slammed the door on mourinho's face and greeted branko with open arms!
just like we should accept the fact this this is our IPL and our clubs level in asia, we should also accept the fact that this is wat we can have as a coach, maybe a lil better but not much!
Plz dont confuse "aiming high" with "being realisitc", yes aiming high is good, but we should also keep in mind our standards and the reality!
2)Many people here, make quick supreficial judgements not only about branko but about anyone. one day, they ask yahya to play for TM, the next day they want him fired out of TM even before daei! these peoples change their views according to the direction of the winds, and unfortunately, there are a lot of them. many others have hardly ever played football, some have been following not only TM but soccer in general for only 3 or 4 years. These people are easily influenced by our media and fail to think deeply and rationally before making their decisions, and if u notice, its mostly such people who are branko haters and they show their class by asking for him or our players like daei or i dunno who to have their legs broken or injured or something! when these people keep constantly firing branko left and right, i try to show them the other side of brnako as well, but they are not ready to accept it, and so i keep trying to convice them and it makes an image that im a branko worshipper or i prioritize branko over TM or watever!

in many of my posts, i have criticised branko. infact, i have clearly stated, "IM NOT THE BIGGEST FANS OF BRANKO MYSELF, I FIND MY VIEWS DIFFERENT THAN BRAN*** ON MANY OCCASIONS AND I HAVENT ALWAYS BEEN PLEASED WITH HIS WORK"..BUT, when i criticise him, i make sure first of all, i do it in a civil manner, second, i try to give my opinion about the situation not just "beshinam kenare godo begam lengesh kon", and thirdly, i appreciate him and applaud to him for all his good things as well. this man has worked hard with our country, has coped up and adapted himself to us, has spent his tim, energy and our money on this TM, thats more than enough for him to support him not only now but in watever decisions he makes throughout his life. however, i repeat, supporting him doesnt mean agreeing to watever he says or always finding an excuse to say he is right, but appreciating him for his good things and criticinsg AND offering suggetsions for his bad points.

Before i conclude, i would also like to say, that when someone like me or any other "branko supporter" gives a reason for something wrong or right, its not an excuse, atleast not for me. wat i try to do is put myself in his shoes, look at things from his perspective and read his mind. then i judge, whether wat he was thinking could have been right or not? i might not agree to it, but i might respect it, because it is a view point and not all of us share the same view points!

[Dr.shark]

We failed today. Our coach did, our players did, even our fans did. Only a "non-existing" 5000 fans????????????? The stadium was overtaken by Mexicans! and with all these Iranian immigrants in Europe??? We failed in every department.

you should look at the game agaion because the stadium was full of Irane fans it is just the german tv did not show them but they were yalling Iran Iran the whole time.

[Dr.shark]

everybody makes mistakes, every coach makes mistakes, every player makes mistakes! branko is no worldclass coach, but he is a decent one, and FOR SURE, THE BEST IRAN CAN HAVE AT THE MOMENT!

nobody here said branko is flawless, nobody here said branko doesnt make mistakes, nobody even said he is worldclass, but people fail to see the fact that this is all we can afford, not only money wise but socially and politically as well!

but ofcourse, im pissed at everyone today!
FIRST OF ALL, WHO GAVE THAT USELESS & UNNECESSARY BACK PASS TO MIRZAPOUR??? i think it was nekounam, he usually has a habit of giving back passes a lot. whoever he was, for heavens sake doesnt he know that mirzapour has problems in kicking the ball?? why the hell did he pass back specially since there wasnt much pressure on him! on top of that, mirzpaour makes a bad clearance! even worse, rahman rezai cant stop and clear a ball in time after years of playing in SERIE A & worse of all, the mexican player was unmarked and there was nobody to cover up rezai!
GOD! HOW MANY MISTAKES IN 10 SECONDS! if any one, just one of these players hadnt made a mistake, this ball wouldnt have become a goal and there was a high chance we wouldnt concede the third goal either!
teflak nosrati, enghad az nosrati bad goftim, vali baghiye bazikona reedan!

Again, on the second goal, why was the mexican player TOTALLY UNMARKED in the penalty area???

thirdly, why didnt branko sub out daei?? he hardly touched the ball, i dont think he touched the ball more than 10 times in the whole 90 minutes!! that means one touch every 9 minutes approx! WTF??
specially in second half, when branko sees that our midfield is nonexistant, he SHOULD HAVE REMOVED DAEI AND BROUGHT IN A MIDFIELD PREFERABLY SHOJAEI TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE MIDFIELD AND IRAN COULD PLAY WITH a 4-2-3-1 WITH HASHEMIAN UPFRONT, MADANCHI ON LEFT & KIA ON RIGHT!

Fourthly, how is branko at fault if rahman rezai (irans best defender) cant stop a ball and clear it in time? how is he at fault if his goalkeeper doesnt clear the ball properly! ofcourse, he was at fault for not trying to change the game in the second half although it was obvious mexico was TOTALLY dominating! but it wasnt branko alone who was at fault!

Fifthly, im sure everybody agrees with me that first half, iran played AMAZINGLY and were even more dangerous than mexico! that was the true iran, and that was wat branko has produced! if u really wanna see branko's work, then look at first half!
second half, could be a variety of reasons:
1)absence of karimi (who wasnt very impressive probably cos of injury)
2)unfit mahdavikia (whose unfitness & uncordination was covered up by the rest of the players like kaabi, nekounam, hashemian and teymourian)
3)nekounam got a yellow and had to be more careful with tackles
4)teymourian and even nekounam and some of our other players were tired! teymourian and nekounam were the heart of the team and once they disappeared in the second half, the whole team disapparead!
5)or some wrong analysis or something by branko!

but in general, i see a silver lining in this dark cloud! if iran can raise their hopes again, if they can play like they did in the first half, and considering that they are now in a DO OR DIE SITUATION (iran is best known for getting results in such situations), we still have a decent chance! watever happened is over, and its no use crying over spilt milk. we have to look back at our mistakes, learn from them & correct them, raise our spirits & believe in our selves and go to portugal. the good thing i saw about portugal was that unlike mexico, portugal and angola both played a more open game than mexico and this gives more space for our talented players to play their game and show their skills!

and lastly, i think teymourian was one of iran's best players today. he played better than nekounam(who played quite well as well) in the first half and i think if he shows the same performance in the next 2 games, he can get offers from decent european teams!

so the 1st half we did good it was all Bran*** work this is what he has made?????
and the 2nd half was our players work ??????
that has to be the biggest amount of bull shit that I have ever seen posted if Branko is so good to have a nice 1st half then why did he keep daie in the game when as you even say he never had the ball???
and as far as you going on about unfit players who picked these players that have been injured for the last 2,3,4,5, months???? did Branko not pick them????? was branko not asked over and over about daie merzapoor and the rest??
how come in all the games we had played he never changed his game and try new players???? so he would not have to put unfit players in a world cup game like he did ?????
why does he play merzapoor when he knows he is injured and he has talebloo, rudbarean.??????
why does he put us on diffence against a team that we all know has the power to run for 90 min and can score at any given time????
does he not know in deffence one needs to have a great goale that can be used by other players to pass to??????
does he branko not know that merzapoor can't kick a ball if his life was on the line??????
and you want to pick on reazae well let me tell you some thing I thank ALLAH that rezaee was on his game day or the score would have been 10-1 rezae had to mark their best forward and still save merzapoors ass left and right in that game just how much can one man do by him self and at that time it did not help to see branko take out nosrate a deffence men to add in borhane putting more work on the sholders of rezae.
before you go off on the players go off on the man that picked them for the game we had borhane why did he not take out daie and put him in???
why not put shojaee in for karimi???
why not use his last sub and bring in bakhteyar zade and take out nosrate ???
why not do that early in the game ???? like mecxico did ?????
why did he (branko ) have to be such a fuc*ing ass and always play the same players fit or unfit no matter what is happening???????? this is what pisses me off branko can fuc* up as much as he wants and you people will come here and say don't talk bad about him he is the best thing that has happend to us bull shit. we sen our b team to U.S afrt 98 and Mexico send their a team they won 2-1 over us we did not have a branko back then now their a team wins 3-1 over our a team and we have branko to this means he has put us down that is what he has done
any thing you see wrong with a player and we have seen a player do in just about every game like merzapoor, nosrate, Daie, and the rest is branko's fult because he never takes them out and he never says to them that they did bad. he says to them they are good when did he ever turn around and say merzapoor you must start playing like you used to play and you must learn to kick the ball or else I will not play you?????
when have you seen branko turn around and say daie you must run faster and take on target shots on net or else I will not play you if I see that you are left in medfild when even the deffence men have made their war to the top and are takeing shots on net as we see nosrate rezae golmo all doing these days.???????
so don't tell me Branko has been good for us he is the CANCER OF TM.

[P.Nima]

Yashar jaan, I read your post and would like to ask you a question. How come is it that Teymorian is playing so well and the so called "European Based" players dont' perform that well.
I think the reason is the "Hunger Factor". I bet you if Khatibi was there, if Shojai was there, if not because of the "honor of wearing the national Jersey in front of the whole world", for getting a fat contract in Europe they would have run like crazy.
The fact that Mirza can't clear the ball isn't Brnako's fault, but the fact that after 4 years working with him, he still can't clear the ball and still Branko chooses him to be the starter is Branko's fault.
Leaders are given resposiblities and authorities and they are responsible for their decisions. Branko made a decision for Mirza to be number one and he has to live with the consequences. I am not going to even talk about Dai (which seems to be waste of breath). When the whole Abu Ghuraib thing came up, Ramsfeld was not there to torture those Iraqies but in US everybody held him responsible for the actions of US forces. That is what leadership is you get authority and make decisions and if they are bad you have to answer and are responsible.
My problem with Branko is his attitude. As a matter of fact it seems it is general attitude in the whole Eastern European Soccer world. To do ok and decent, never risk and settle for mediocer. It seems even the best Eastern European teams (Romania in 94, Czech, Poland) although they were great they never risk it all out (they didn't beleive they can and deserve to win it all).
How can a team goes to the dressing room and come out so flat? Until when we will witness names on the paper play and not the hugry generation of next generation. Rooney is on the bench, Balack is on the Bench, Borgeti is pulled out when performance is sub par. In our team, if Karimi has one leg he probably will start so is Kia, and don't even dare to talk about Dai.
Bottom line, Branko is not the man of the crucial days. We missed a chance to get Mexico on a sub par day and after a 1-0 vicotry over Angola Portugal will come for a kill.
As a coach, you demand excellence not ok peroformance, great leaders and coaches breed that culture. Branko doesn't see that far and obviously hasn't been able to create that atmosphere and culture in the team. I am a cocah myself and by no means I compare myself to Branko or likes of his, but I read a lot about coaching. One of the guys I read a lot about is Anson and Stephan Kwach (Ajax legendry coach in 1970s) and Reynos Michele. You probably have not heard about Anson. He used to coach US women national team. He is the guy who was the founder of the Tarhill girls program in Universtiy of North Carolina in USA. Tarhills have dominated the girls NCAA and US collage and 90% of women national us players come from NC Tarhills.
I read his book and it is amazing how he talks about coaching at this level isn't about technique or tactic any more. It is about creating that goal and selling it to the players. Making them beleive and feel that goal. All psychological stuff. How to establish a one on one relationship with players and deal with their fears, encourage them. Brnako yesterday faild to do this. Maybe some other day he will, yesterday he didn't seem to be in control (based on couple of shots I saw from him on TV).
Not only he did not do any of the above mentionmed, he seems to inject more caution or fear on the team. Probably he was more afraid of 8-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia by Germany in 2002. It was a possibility but those who don't risk won't gain anything.
God even my wife after the 40th minutes said "Oh, Iran scored a goal and it seems they don't run anymore". I said it is probably beacuse they want to make sure no score until the end of the first half and second half will be different like the early 40 minutes of the first half. It seems she omenously was right. It seems the attitude was we scored a goal against mexico and let's all bunch up in front of our goal "mabada " god forbid Mexican socre a goal.

Branko is not the right coach for us. He is passive and scared of taking risks. Nice post

[yashar_fasihnia]

so the 1st half we did good it was all Bran*** work this is what he has made?????
and the 2nd half was our players work ??????
that has to be the biggest amount of bull shit that I have ever seen posted

AHAN! this is wat many people dont see! whenever we win, we always say it was the players and their gheyrat and we were lucky etc, but when we lose, we always blame branko! NOW ISNT THIS EQUALLY BULLSHIT??

the same way, we can turn the tables around and say, when we win, it is branko, when we lose, it is the players mistakes! CANT WE??

but the point is, everybody is responsible for the loss, not BRANKO ALONE! THIS IS WAT MANY PEOPLE DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND!and by everybody, i dont just mean branko and TM staff and players in germany, but our football roots in iran, clubs, infrastructures, budgets, political structure, economic structure, etc!

There is no denial that branko made mistakes in that game, but was branko the only one who made mistakes??
Dont temme, branko chose this players, so its his fault! otherwise i will ask u, SO U MEAN TO SAY, IF IT WAS ANOTHER COACH,HE WOULD NOT CHOOSE RAHMAN REZAI???PLZ, THINK BEFORE U SPEAK!

and as far as you going on about unfit players who picked these players that have been injured for the last 2,3,4,5, months???? did Branko not pick them????? was branko not asked over and over about daie merzapoor and the rest??

ok, same question agian, branko chose the unfit players fine, THESE INCLUDED KARIMI,ZANDI,HASHEMIAN & MAHDAVIKIA (which u called "REST" in that line of urs )
so ur suggesting branko leaves out karimi, mahdavikia, zandi & hashemian from the worldcup right because they were injured? brilliant idea, i wonder how many offers u have for a coaching positions form clubs like milan, bayern & barca??

how come in all the games we had played he never changed his game and try new players???? so he would not have to put unfit players in a world cup game like he did ?????

he didnt try new players??? he tried a lot of players, he introduced a lot of players! hebrought back players from exile and from different nationalities!
he tried different formations!
and ur saying he didnt try different players?? For ur information, in only the last 2 friendly games against bosnia & croatia, 21 out of our 23 players played in them! talebloo & mahdavikia were the only 2 who didnt play in the last 2 friendlies ALONE! so cut the crap!

why does he play merzapoor when he knows he is injured and he has talebloo, rudbarean.??????

excuse my knowledge, but when was mirzapour injured before the mexico game?
nice arguments

why does he put us on diffence against a team that we all know has the power to run for 90 min and can score at any given time????

i dunno if he really went of defence because if he wanted to defend, he could have pulled out karimi and bring in sohrab bakhtiarizade to defend!
if he wanted to defend, he would just order his players to kick the ball out everytime they get it to waste time! BUT DID HE DO THIS?? NO!

stop being so superficial! branko was much gutsier than ppl think!
he started with an inexperienced young player and assigned him the most crucial position of the team, the backbone of the team, the defensive midfielder to ANDRANIK TEYMOURIAN and it paid off!
he had the balls to sub out a player like karimi and bring another young inexperienced hungry player like mehrzad madanchi! he could have just brought in an experienced defender like sohrab bakhtiarizade and asked him to help in defense and kick the ball out, but did he do that? NO!

The main reason we played like that in second half was BECAUSE OF OUR LACK OF FITNESS & PROFESSIONALISM! and ofcourse, individual mistakes!
fitness is something the clubs should provide! when u have a semi pro IPL compared to the indian league, when u have an IPL where our clubs cant get past ROUND 1 OF ACL, wat do u expect our fitness of players, our understnading of football, our professionalism to be?? and that too, against a well experienced, well coordinated mexican team who has and WILL AGAIN beat giants of football!

This is the reality of our football, maybe we could have achieved a bit better and ended up with a draw against mexico if it wasnt for those individual mistakes or maybe if branko had subbed daei and brought in shojaei to tighten up our midfield, but still, that wouldnt change the fact that this is our standard of football!

GET USED TO IT! the good news is, we are improving, khodaroshokr, and hopefuylly, with more players moving to europe, with more foreign coaches and players, with more budget, with better programming, we can improve our standards and inshall become a world power in football! we got the talent, we got the passion, we got the gheyrat, but thats about all we got, nothing else and this alone wont get us anywhere! unfortunately!

does he not know in deffence one needs to have a great goale that can be used by other players to pass to??????

doesnt kaabi know that mirzapour has problems with kicking the ball, why the F*** does he have to give a back pass when he isnt forced to? he wasnt even under pressure, or even if he was, he could just kick it out!

does he branko not know that merzapoor can't kick a ball if his life was on the line??????

mirzapour has much better phsyque, reflexes and experience than roudbarian and talebloo! since each othe goalkeepers ahve their own problems, he has to choose one, and he chose mirzapour! why the hell did kaabi have to give a back pass to mirzapour when he knows mirzapour has problems with kicking the ball? why does rahman rezai have to take so long to clear a ball with all that experience that he has??

how does branko know 3 of his player are gonna make individual mistakes one after the other in 10 seconds to help mexico reach the goal??

yes, branko chose these players, but u think other players dont have problems? they dont do mistakes? if branko would choose other players for these 3, they would all play a perfect game?

and you want to pick on reazae well let me tell you some thing I thank ALLAH that rezaee was on his game day or the score would have been 10-1 rezae had to mark their best forward and still save merzapoors ass left and right in that game just how much can one man do by him self and at that time it did not help to see branko take out nosrate a deffence men to add in borhane putting more work on the sholders of rezae.

i never picked on rezai! read all my posts, im thankful to Allah just as much as u are that rahman and yahya both played a great game! even nosrati didnt make any crucial mistake! nor did kaabi! our defense line was awesome, but individual mistakes by 2 out of these 4 players cost us the game!
so stop with ur crap that i picked on rahman, i never did, i complemeneted him for his great job in every post of mine, but i wont close my eyes and ignore his mistake either unlike many people who close their eyes on branko's postive achievements and just point ur fingers at his negative points!

before you go off on the players go off on the man that picked them for the game we had borhane why did he not take out daie and put him in???
why not put shojaee in for karimi???
why not use his last sub and bring in bakhteyar zade and take out nosrate ???
why not do that early in the game ???? like mecxico did ?????

about daei, i dunno, and im equally pissed off at him, for it. daei should have been subbed out during half time and i totally agree with it! as i said, branko made mistakes and played a role in our loss yesterday, but to blame him for everything and make him the only reason for our loss IS PLAIN STUPID, IRRATIONAL & IGNORANT!
and maybe, just maybe, there are certain things happening behind the curtains which u and me from behind our screens cant see??? its no mystery that there are constant interferences from higher authorities and mafias in everyday lives of iran, and football is no exception! so, i wont be so quick in judging branko before i hear wat really happened (if they ever say it) after the worldcup from someone reliable!

branko could have brought shojaei instead of madanchi true, and i would prefer that, but wasnt it just yesterday u guys were all drooling over madanchi and his goals, his speed, his hunger, his shots?? now suddenly, people are complaining why madanchi came in??
also, branko was playing a 4-2-2-2 (despite the wrong belief by many here that branko played other systems like 4-2-3-1), daei and hashemian were upfront, karimi on left, kia on right, and teymourian and nekounam in the middle. where branko took out karimi, he decided to bring in a left midfielder with speed to play in the left position, maybe that was his reasoning, in addition to madanchi's good shots, good speed, and good hunger! i dunno, im not branko!

he brought in borhani instead of nosrati because he wanted to add potence to our front line! UR SO CONTRADICTORY THAT U SOUND LIKE A CONFUSED TEENAGER! first u say, branko is scared, and why is he defending against a team like mexicon that can attack for 90 minutes! then u blame branko for borhani isntead of nosrati, but not bakhtiarizade??
Here is news genius, borhani is a forward, bakhtiarizade is a defender! borhani was brought in to help in the attack line! why would he wanna bring in bakhtiarizade to help our defense when we our trailing by 2 goals!!!
if he plays defensive, people call him a wimp (although he has proved he isnt), if he plays attacking, ppl still complain!

face it, ur hate for branko has blinded ur eyes and disabled ur mind!

so don't tell me Branko has been good for us he is the CANCER OF TM.

ur an unappreciative maghroor dillusional typical iranian who thinks he and iran are the best in everything! never applaud anyone for their hardwork, always complaining for more and never ready and brave enough to face the reality!

this is ALMOST the best we can have! look at our social, economical, political situation in iran and in the world! it says it all!
branko has worked hard for us, and yes, he has been paid well, but he deserves it! he gained from us, we gained from him! he helped our football a lot, more than u can ever imagine, more than any iranian coach could ever do!

if we had an iranian coach, we would still be playing the ancient 3 defender system, would have never reached the 15th rank in the world, would have never been able to tie croatia 2-2, play so amazingly and completely dominate germany in tehran and qualify so easily to the worldcup!