Some talking points, since I didn’t watch parts of the 2nd half.
1- I’ll start with the best: Karma is a bitch, MF’er.
Yes, it was karma that turned the knife inside the grassrolling time wasting maggots that they should concede the winner at minute 5 of the added time.
If the MF’ers hadn’t grass-rolled (I’d say easily above 10-12 minutes of the game) for that long, the ref would have whistled the end of the match at 1-1.
How sweet is that, I say? Sweeter than heavenly nectars.
2- The game can be divided into 3 segments:
A) prior to the freak goal
B) Between the freak goal upto midway thru the 2nd half
C) The remainder
A) Prior to the goal we actually played some really good football (if we omit the last touch/finishing). We worked the field and flanks, we attacked from the middle. Some really good one-touch passing. Some really good positioning and space-finding by the players. All that against a very compressed bus parked in front of Lebanese goal.
Yes, there were some negatives even during this period: Bad finishing, Poor Ghoddos performance (that we all expected far more from him) and Tm having little plans for SET PIECES. This last one is starting to worry as many have mentioned too. We just NEED to have a few good combos or plans for set pieces. However, it seems the WIND had a major impact on the entire game, set pieces included. Nevertheless, we should do better in this.
B) I assume the wind played its hand in their goal. But it doesn’t take the blame away from Beiranvand for stopping to play, taking his eyes off the ball and actually asking for an “offside flag”(?????). Same thing with the defense. This is BASIC football 1-0-1. Do not stop playing until you hear the whistle.
(Puts Skocic’s comments on our players’ “room for improvement in TACTICAL abilities” into perspective and underscores it. So much for all the drama we went thru by Taremi’s misplaced outrage)
What was park the bus and eat up time, suddenly became “fall on grass even if someone looks at you”!! Disgusting and very frustrating. Referee’s decisions and calls also added to the stress for our lads. Somehow he never took our side in a 50/50 situation, while allowing deplorable time wasting by the opponents.
No wonder we looked so stressed and out of focus, resulting in series of yellow cards, mistakes, some really poor moves and performances.
Skocic did the right thing to take JB out as he looked he might get a 2nd yellow with mounting frustration and horrible grass-rolling.
C) In come reinforcements Sayadmanesh, Karim and a reshuffle of our left flank with Mohamadi coming in for LB/LWB role, allowing Amiri to push up (seems a plan-B schtick for Skocic, seen in other games too) for stressed out JB, and very poor performing Ghoddos and Ezatollahi (the latter was just abysmal! Such a surprise after his Korea performance)
This energized our attacks and more importantly, the midfield.
I watched segment this one & off. So cant say much about the details of the plays. But clearly with injected pace and hunger the bus crumbled and paid the price for their dirty tactics.
I cant say I’m happy with the overall Team performance. But if we manage to play like the first segment (upto the goal), I’d be very very happy.
But the GREATEST thing I take out of this game is resilience of our team has improved. Not many teams can bounce back from such a stressful game (ref, time wasting, wind, poor ground, unnecessary drama of taremi/skocic, …). Certainly not our traditional TMs (even under CQ we cant find many instances like this).
To come back from behind, not giving up and to score TWO goals in dying minutes is to be celebrated by all.
This is the 2nd comeback of TM so we can say this with more assurance that we have become more resilient.
============
Finally a note on the elephant in the room:
I’m glad we won (aside from the 3 points & maintaining the lead in table), especially for the general idea of ”discipline”
Had we lost I’m sure a lot of ppl wld have brought up the Taremi angle and unfairly blamed the loss on staff …. Conveniently overlooking the fact that if Taremi hadn’t made those comments, NONE of this drama wld have taken place.
But anyway, now this can be a case in favor of discipline and respect for norms of professionalism.
Now, Taremi will come back. But hopefully with some shaving of his ego and learns to act like a pro player. And with his inclusion after Syria game, the whole team also becomes stronger.
1- I’ll start with the best: Karma is a bitch, MF’er.
Yes, it was karma that turned the knife inside the grassrolling time wasting maggots that they should concede the winner at minute 5 of the added time.
If the MF’ers hadn’t grass-rolled (I’d say easily above 10-12 minutes of the game) for that long, the ref would have whistled the end of the match at 1-1.
How sweet is that, I say? Sweeter than heavenly nectars.
2- The game can be divided into 3 segments:
A) prior to the freak goal
B) Between the freak goal upto midway thru the 2nd half
C) The remainder
A) Prior to the goal we actually played some really good football (if we omit the last touch/finishing). We worked the field and flanks, we attacked from the middle. Some really good one-touch passing. Some really good positioning and space-finding by the players. All that against a very compressed bus parked in front of Lebanese goal.
Yes, there were some negatives even during this period: Bad finishing, Poor Ghoddos performance (that we all expected far more from him) and Tm having little plans for SET PIECES. This last one is starting to worry as many have mentioned too. We just NEED to have a few good combos or plans for set pieces. However, it seems the WIND had a major impact on the entire game, set pieces included. Nevertheless, we should do better in this.
B) I assume the wind played its hand in their goal. But it doesn’t take the blame away from Beiranvand for stopping to play, taking his eyes off the ball and actually asking for an “offside flag”(?????). Same thing with the defense. This is BASIC football 1-0-1. Do not stop playing until you hear the whistle.
(Puts Skocic’s comments on our players’ “room for improvement in TACTICAL abilities” into perspective and underscores it. So much for all the drama we went thru by Taremi’s misplaced outrage)
What was park the bus and eat up time, suddenly became “fall on grass even if someone looks at you”!! Disgusting and very frustrating. Referee’s decisions and calls also added to the stress for our lads. Somehow he never took our side in a 50/50 situation, while allowing deplorable time wasting by the opponents.
No wonder we looked so stressed and out of focus, resulting in series of yellow cards, mistakes, some really poor moves and performances.
Skocic did the right thing to take JB out as he looked he might get a 2nd yellow with mounting frustration and horrible grass-rolling.
C) In come reinforcements Sayadmanesh, Karim and a reshuffle of our left flank with Mohamadi coming in for LB/LWB role, allowing Amiri to push up (seems a plan-B schtick for Skocic, seen in other games too) for stressed out JB, and very poor performing Ghoddos and Ezatollahi (the latter was just abysmal! Such a surprise after his Korea performance)
This energized our attacks and more importantly, the midfield.
I watched segment this one & off. So cant say much about the details of the plays. But clearly with injected pace and hunger the bus crumbled and paid the price for their dirty tactics.
I cant say I’m happy with the overall Team performance. But if we manage to play like the first segment (upto the goal), I’d be very very happy.
But the GREATEST thing I take out of this game is resilience of our team has improved. Not many teams can bounce back from such a stressful game (ref, time wasting, wind, poor ground, unnecessary drama of taremi/skocic, …). Certainly not our traditional TMs (even under CQ we cant find many instances like this).
To come back from behind, not giving up and to score TWO goals in dying minutes is to be celebrated by all.
This is the 2nd comeback of TM so we can say this with more assurance that we have become more resilient.
============
Finally a note on the elephant in the room:
I’m glad we won (aside from the 3 points & maintaining the lead in table), especially for the general idea of ”discipline”
Had we lost I’m sure a lot of ppl wld have brought up the Taremi angle and unfairly blamed the loss on staff …. Conveniently overlooking the fact that if Taremi hadn’t made those comments, NONE of this drama wld have taken place.
But anyway, now this can be a case in favor of discipline and respect for norms of professionalism.
Now, Taremi will come back. But hopefully with some shaving of his ego and learns to act like a pro player. And with his inclusion after Syria game, the whole team also becomes stronger.
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