Iran vs Hong Kong Post Match Ratings & Discussion

[Iranianarsenal11]

Horrible game... Iran is lucky to have won the match 1-0.... If this Hong Kong side could finish they would have lost 2 or 3 to 1


Ghalenoi: 4 Absolutely no tactics from him whatsoever and his squad call up is so questionable. Ansarifard??? Hajsafi??? Ebrahimi??? These players should all be in a retirement home not team melli. A lot of the blame today goes to him for how unprepared we looked...

Beiro: 2 Abysmal today. Purely terrible... Horrible distribution that made Kanaani and Majid look way worse than they should have been. Almost cost Iran 1/2 goals and is extremely lucky to not get a red card for a hand ball late in the game. I wish VAR looked at that and gave him a red so we didn't have to witness his awful goalkeeping anymore...

Kanaani: 5 Looked really weak in defense and just worried me. Then again Beiro made him look terrible as well... Not his best day

Majid: 6.5 A class over the other defenders today. Beiro put him in some terrible positions but he did well to clear or get the ball out. Defended decently.

Ramin: 5.5 I prefer Sadegh over him at RB. He just cannot stay back enough as a right back and it's going to cost us. Was pretty weak today overall

Milad 5. Horrible defender and has no technique whatsoever... Our left side is really in deep shit :/

Cheshmi 5.5 Blunder almost caused a goal for HK. Besides the blunder he was slow but at least he won some tackles and almost every header

Ghoddos: 7 Best midfield player today. Only player with class and linked up well.

ARJ: 5.5 Kills almost every attack with his poor passing. Not great.

Ghayedi: 8.5 MOTM. Played extremely well and finished his goal nicely. Had another shot saved. He's surprising me....

Moghanlou: 6 Held the ball up OK. Was miles better than Ansarifard IMO. Had a poor miss in the first half but he's def over Ansarifard for me...

Taremi: 4 Horrible today. Goshad and lazy, weak, slow, sloppy... Just awful

SUBS

Ansarifard: 4 Slow, weak, just not a team melli level player. Sad that he is even called up....

Mohebbi: 6 decent energy and covered well for the wingbacks. Other than that didn't really show much.

Ezatolahi: 6 helped control the midfield against HK but otherwise was slow and didn't do much

Ebrahimi: 5.5 Very slow and a shell of himself. He is 36 and it's actually criminal that he still plays for team melli....

Hajsafi 5 Was not good off the bench. Bad passes and just awful defending...

[webmaster]

not worth for a thread

[Nokhodi]

Too high.
Was the team on drugs?
Were they poisoned?

I don't know what that was.

As I said before, it was like Space Jam.

[OSTAD POOYA]

Pathetic to say the least! A better side would have defeated Iran for sure.

[Abtin]

Oh this is gonna be interesting 🍿

[arj42]

Horrible performance. Blame pesar khale all you want but the players themselves were horrendous. Remember when we would say “we would’ve won even without a coach” when skocic was around? This is the same thing but worse. Without a coach these players should have done better, regardless of substitutions and all of that. Maybe the players just had an off day. I’m sure they will perform better agaisnt UAE

[nisfejahan]

what a sorry display. You look at Iraq first, manhandling Japan, and then we watch this embarrassment!! Lucky not to lose or tie.

[persiangodfather]

bUt We PlAYeD atTaCkINg FoOtBaLl

[Roozbeh-G2006]

AFC Asian cup group stage is a practice games for top Asian teams as if you
went on the pitch and hopped around on one leg you would still come third and advance to the next stage.
Those who show their hand at this stage would definitely get knocked out before they see quarter finals.
You should only really judge teams in the knock out stages.
SK, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, none of these teams
have so far played their best.
I would wash my hands off TM now if I saw TM go out all guns blazing
scoring 3/4 goals past these weak teams showing off their best.
Relax

[momad2468]

Woke up at 4:00am to watch that trash.

What makes it particularly frustrating is seeing the same, aged, players making the same mistakes. At least if someone like Hosseinnejad gives the ball away when trying to play out of a press, you would think it is good for his experience. Watching Cheshmi do it for what feels like the 1000th time at TM level is infuriating.

I am also sick of these totally average PGPL strikers walking up to start for TM. We have seen so many over the years score a few goals in one season and become starters for TM for a brief period and then disappear. Again, time that could be given to promising young players to bring them through, showcase them, and hopefully secure moves to other leagues. Instead we go with aged players whose peak is scoring against Khoone be Khoone off a scrappy corner in a second rate league.

Ghalenoie could have brought a mix of youth and experience and transition the team, instead he has persevered with a side that peaked against Portugal in 2018.

[FeLFeL]

Hopefully it's a wake-up call, rather have this happen now than later in the tournament

[Messy]

It really feels like GN used this game like a friendly, but Chesmi and Beiranvand playing poooooooorly threw the team into a funk that lasted the whole match even after we made subs

I am only going to be worried if we don't win our group or play like this in R16.

[Farhad21]

Mourinho To TM?

[Karimi 8]

Iranianarsenal11 I actually agree with all of your ratings.

Overall this match was hard to watch honestly, players definitely took the match lightly despite what they will say afterwards. It was a very weak opposition, but that still doesn't justify to me how we could not complete more than 2 passes in a row without giving away the ball or the fact that we had absolutely ZERO tactics or guidance from a silent "coach" on the sidelines? I honestly sometimes think Ando is coaching the team, not GN. Had HK had any talent, they easily could've scored 2 goals.

Just to highlight a few things:
- Beiro's intelligence is so low in many instances, but he is also just extremely careless. No pressure on him, he will straight up kick the ball out of bounds from a goal-kick

- The combined IQ of Beiro and Kanaani might be 60, the guy is also very dumb with his decisions and was super shaky today. Hosseini, Shoja, and PAG are our best CBs by a mile.

- Ramin should play RW, I don't know why we force him further back, he doesn't defend. But I am glad Moharrami was rested, he is our top 5 most important players.

- Milad has two moods, unstoppable, quick, gets forward, tackles hard, or completely useless, shell shock, and scared of the ball. The latter is most common.

- How a country that produced CDMs like Bagheri, Nekounam, Ando, etc has ended up with Cheshmi, Ebrahimi, and Ezatolahi is beyond me. Cheshmi & Ezatolahi are the slowest, most useless CDMs I have ever seen. They can't pressure, don't tackle or chase the ball, and other than the one shot Chesmi took in the WC, they can't shoot for their lives. We are so lucky Ghoddos has developed in this position, without him we would have ZERO midfielders. Hell even Ebrahimi is better than Chesmi and Ezatolahi combined still.

- Moghanlou cannot score a goal, I am not sure why Karim is on the team and playing, but this will be resolved with a rested Azmoun in the knockout stages. I really wish we had tested out younger and better strikers for these games.

- Jahanbaksh makes the incorrect decision, 90% of the time. He takes one touch too much, slows down when he should speed up and vice versa, can't shoot the ball anymore, over hits his crosses, falls over dribbling, the guy is completely useless apart applying pressure and the occasional correct pass

- Taremi the entire tournament looks like he has been walking around with a stick up his ass. He looks like he has a horrible attitude this tournament and I am not sure why. He was invisible this game too, he needs to wake up, he is our most important player.

- Ghaedi has proven me wrong, and I am happy about it. We haven't had a tactical player like him in a very long time, and he is much more clinical than Khalatbari who is his closest comparison. Even if he doesn't start the big games, he will be a great impact sub.

I am glad this match is over and we won, that was horrible to watch. But I can't say we will take anything from it because I don't think other than GN yelling at Ezatolahi to hurry up when tying his shoes, I ever saw him give any sort of advice to the players. The guy just walks around frowning that he has gone a few hours without eating koobideh.

[AhuraMazda1]

Iranianarsenal11 I actually agree with all of your ratings.

Overall this match was hard to watch honestly, players definitely took the match lightly despite what they will say afterwards. It was a very weak opposition, but that still doesn't justify to me how we could not complete more than 2 passes in a row without giving away the ball or the fact that we had absolutely ZERO tactics or guidance from a silent "coach" on the sidelines? I honestly sometimes think Ando is coaching the team, not GN. Had HK had any talent, they easily could've scored 2 goals.

Just to highlight a few things:
- Beiro's intelligence is so low in many instances, but he is also just extremely careless. No pressure on him, he will straight up kick the ball out of bounds from a goal-kick

- The combined IQ of Beiro and Kanaani might be 60, the guy is also very dumb with his decisions and was super shaky today. Hosseini, Shoja, and PAG are our best CBs by a mile.

- Ramin should play RW, I don't know why we force him further back, he doesn't defend. But I am glad Moharrami was rested, he is our top 5 most important players.

- Milad has two moods, unstoppable, quick, gets forward, tackles hard, or completely useless, shell shock, and scared of the ball. The latter is most common.

- How a country that produced CDMs like Bagheri, Nekounam, Ando, etc has ended up with Cheshmi, Ebrahimi, and Ezatolahi is beyond me. Cheshmi & Ezatolahi are the slowest, most useless CDMs I have ever seen. They can't pressure, don't tackle or chase the ball, and other than the one shot Chesmi took in the WC, they can't shoot for their lives. We are so lucky Ghoddos has developed in this position, without him we would have ZERO midfielders. Hell even Ebrahimi is better than Chesmi and Ezatolahi combined still.

- Moghanlou cannot score a goal, I am not sure why Karim is on the team and playing, but this will be resolved with a rested Azmoun in the knockout stages. I really wish we had tested out younger and better strikers for these games.

- Jahanbaksh makes the incorrect decision, 90% of the time. He takes one touch too much, slows down when he should speed up and vice versa, can't shoot the ball anymore, over hits his crosses, falls over dribbling, the guy is completely useless apart applying pressure and the occasional correct pass

- Taremi the entire tournament looks like he has been walking around with a stick up his ass. He looks like he has a horrible attitude this tournament and I am not sure why. He was invisible this game too, he needs to wake up, he is our most important player.

- Ghaedi has proven me wrong, and I am happy about it. We haven't had a tactical player like him in a very long time, and he is much more clinical than Khalatbari who is his closest comparison. Even if he doesn't start the big games, he will be a great impact sub.

I am glad this match is over and we won, that was horrible to watch. But I can't say we will take anything from it because I don't think other than GN yelling at Ezatolahi to hurry up when tying his shoes, I ever saw him give any sort of advice to the players. The guy just walks around frowning that he has gone a few hours without eating koobideh.

I agree with everything you said except I don't believe Ezat is so bad but of course he doesnt compare with Nekou, Ando, and Bagheri. In this squad he ranges between being the third - fourth most important player. For me Jahanbakhsh has always been awful but Majid is a close second. This game Majid wasnt the worst version of himself but in our last game...