Iran vs. Uzbekistan Oct. 10th WCQ Match Thread

[oracle]

Isn’t uae also in out group. Nonsense. It’s just arabs doing one thing they are really good at besides grassrolling, wanna guess! Cheating.

Its funny how 4 years a go was a no no and had iraq choose another venue and this time
They say OH AS LONG AS THAT COUNTRY IS NOT HOSTING A MATCH AT HOME on same exact date IS OK ..

Afc=Arab football c....

QATAR PLAYING IN UAE instead of mashad is biggest gift they can get since last gift they got.

[diz]

In US, the DraftKings app will show the match. You have to have an account but don’t have to bet. The feed is HD but without commentary (which is sometimes even better).

[Keano]

Katanec won't be present during the game as he is sick.

Also Urunov got injured and won't be able to make the Uzbek camp

Today I heard that Urunov will be match-ready for tomorrow. Also rumors have it that he didn't play for Perspolis last match so he is fit for this game against Iran. Not sure how true that is though. I don't believe many things coming out of Iranian media


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[Keano]

In US, the DraftKings app will show the match. You have to have an account but don't have to bet. The feed is HD but without commentary (which is sometimes even better).

AFC Hub YouTube channel has lately been streaming all games. Hopefully tomorrow's game will be streamed as well


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[Damavand]

AFC Hub YouTube channel has lately been streaming all games. Hopefully tomorrow's game will be streamed as well


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Since Draft-kings has most likely paid to broadcast the game in the US, then the game will not be available on the AFC YouTube channel. Which is why it’s not showing up at all.

The Iran - Qatar game though will be broadcast on that channel.

[Team Melli Fan]

Uzbek FA YouTube channel has the press conference. Since AFC's YouTube channel won't show the game, Uzbek FA might:

https://www.youtube.com/@UZBEKISTANFA


OneFootball also has it for 3.99 EUR:

https://onefootball.com/en/match/2518320

https://www.livesoccertv.com/match/4...istan-vs-iran/


AFC's YouTube channel will have the Iran vs Qatar game:

https://www.youtube.com/@AFCAsianCup

[perspolis#1]

This game is the psychologically most important game of our group. A win is a great result that puts us in control and puts the other teams in the group at each other's throats.

A tie is a decent result that follows the form of "win at home and draw away" that is generally needed for a safe world cup qualification.

A loss might have devastating consequences given a game vs Qatar next.

The boys need to be focused on the prize.


Ok that being said, I sat down and watched some of Uzbekistan's most recent games to analyze.


Formation

Uzbekistan started the same way in their two matches so far. They played a 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 depending on the phase of the game. Their front two of Shomurodov and Uronov are allowed freedom to roam and to be most of the offensive threat. Their widemen(Nasrullaev and Alijonov) had very fixed roles.They provide width and they carry the ball up the wings. Their midfield 3 of Shukurov, Khamrobekov, and Masharipov play close together to control the ball and to stifle the midfield when defending. More on this later.

Strategy

Defensively--> Uzbekistan plays a rather rigid structure with 3 CBs that hold their positions. Not a lot of variation in their movements at most one of them will step up for an aerial ball and the other two stay in line for offside traps/second balls.Their wingbacks fall back to provide defensive support wide. They have decent recovery speed but nothing incredible. The defending of the back 5 is more of a collective, providing support to each other.Their midfield plays very close together as a group of 3 and do not venture wide. If the ball is one side of the field all three will shift that way so the switch is usually on for the other team. When they start pressing they run together at a certain moment to win the ball and start a counter quickly. This is a strength for a counterattack and potentially a weakness I will touch on later.

Important to note, is that Uzbekistan DOES NOT keep their formation compact. There are spaces between their Defense, Midfield, and Offense.

Offensively--> These spaces in the formation are likely to facilitate Uzbekistan's attributes like strength and speed. They want to isolate players against the other team so they benefit the most.

One of their actual strategies are long balls with specific situations. They get the ball to their wingbacks who stall and then look up for Shomurodov or Uronov who start a run past the defense. This works with their speed and trickiness. They trust Shomurodov in a 1v1 or a 1v2 to get a shot off or to hold it up for the midfield. Uronov also is a dangerous dribbler and scored a nice winning solo goal vs Kyrgyzstan vs 3-4 defenders .Their main issue is getting the ball to them. Once they get it they are dangerous. Their midfield has well rounded box to box players including Masharipov of Esteghlal. They can take decent long shots and sometimes,(especially) Masharipov come in support to the strikers with late runs.

They are a threat on set pieces when attacking. Their LWB is a good crosser who can do a regular cross or deadly cutbacks. I worry the pace of our defense is not good enough to deal with a smart cutback so positioning is key.

Key Players:

1) Eldor Shomurodov- He is their primary goal threat, who starts the runs at the end of the long balls that Uzbekistan will send to test our slow centerbacks. He plays for Roma, got a contract extension, is in high confidence. Uzbekistan favors putting him in 1v1 or 1v2 positions. Our best bet to dealing with him is to crash on him when they look to give him the ball. If its aerial, doubleteaming him where one player does the aerial duel and another picks up the pieces will keep him off the ball for as long as possible.

2) Oston Uronov--> We know him, he is a good dribbler, need to minimize the channels where he has space to dribble someone 1v1. If GN's solution to this is to keep the ball aliasghari that's one way but another way is make sure our LB makes it their job to follow him everywhere on that side and to not commit to any early challenges.

3) Jaloliddin Masharipov- We know him too, he connects Uzbekistan's midfield and their attack with his passing range and ball carrying. Often he likes to make a late run into the box on crosses/setpieces/cutbacks and Uzbekistan's goal vs NK came this way too.

4) Sherzod Nasrullaev/Farrokh Sayfiev-->Their LWB/LB options. . I watched Sayfiev play against Iran, and Nasrullaev this last window. They both have a good cross. They provided far more width to Uzbekistan than their counterpart on the right side. Given that we don't have a solid RB at the moment it will be a challenge to keep whichever of them from getting crosses in. We need to prepare to minimize the opportunities or to be prepared when the cross comes.

5) Utkir Yusupov--> I make a point to include the GK as a key player here because he plays for Foolad and we have a general idea of his level so he won't be a mystery. Taremi and Azmoun are harder opponents than he has had to face for a very long time but we need to be sure to test him from long range and uncomfortable situations like set pieces.

Lineup changes:

1) I am going to sound like a broken record but we cannot afford another slow midfielder. Our game against them last time in Tashkent was a game where we gave away a 2-0 lead because we lost the midfield with such slow replacements. High likelihood GN says who cares and throws Noorafkan in there anyway. We need some dynamism against their midfield 3 that I will explain in our keys to win.

2) We have the personnel to pull it off but we need to know what we are doing with Azmoun and Taremi. If we plan for long balls to them, we will lose. Either play one or the other and let wingers add pace and dribbling to our game or let Taremi assist more with playmaking and Azmoun to be a finisher. A 4-4-2 might sink us here with how weak our midfield defensive capabilities are. We need a third midfielder.

My Keys to win for Iran

1) Do not fall into Uzbekistan's trap of spacing their formation out. They do not play their Defense, Midfield, Offense close together. There are obvious gaps. They are relying on their players to close those spaces with running. We need to avoid getting caught in defensive or 50/50 1v1 situations where they can outpower/outpace our older team.

2) Believe it or not, North Korea did AN EXCELLENT JOB showing GN what Uzbekistan's weaknesses are if only he watches the game. North Korea beat Uzbekistan's press by a central player being ready to receive the ball in the middle, baiting the press by the narrow midfield 3 and then QUICKLY spreading the ball wide to their onrunning fullbacks. This caused Uzbekistan's midfield to be taken out of the play completely and North Korea's players moved the ball into the half spaces in front of the defense.

This caused confusion between the wingbacks and each CB on the side of the back 3 over who should step up to meet the ball and led to chances for NK. Causing this confusion is something Taremi or our wingers like Torabi/Ghaedi are skilled at. I don't see Jahanbakhsh helping this unless he comes on as a sub but hope to be proven wrong.

Their outside CBs are not that fast so if we can get our wingers isolated against them after taking the midfield out we will cause them problems.

3) Aerial balls--> Uzbekistan is probably one of the hardest teams in Asia to score on a set piece due to their physicality matching us. What I did notice though is that they are trained to deal with standard crosses/set pieces mostly. Kyrgyszstan caused them a lot of problems with balls pinging around the box and both of their goals came around this way. Set piece routines meant to cause confusion can help us unlock them on setpieces as we have offensive threats of our own.

4) I would not recommend long balls for the sake of long balls but if there are opportunities for Azmoun to run behind the defense like he did vs UAE, rest assured Uzbekistan's defense is not as fast as the half African/Half Arab defense UAE had against us. He will find 1v1 chances there as well if the pass is done right.

5) Mentally we need to be prepared. If Ghalenoei goes in and tells the team that if they lose he will be angry etc etc, we will of course lose. If he goes in and sets the right attitude we will win. He has to make it known to our players that a win here puts us in a prime position to face Qatar for a chance to have one hand on a WC spot early.

[Kavian]

Even in high schools in north America coaches don't talk like that with players.

No professionism, just bezan ziresh!

[oracle]

AFC Hub YouTube channel has lately been streaming all games. Hopefully tomorrow's game will be streamed as well


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They only show acl 2.

[oracle]

This game is the psychologically most important game of our group. A win is a great result that puts us in control and puts the other teams in the group at each other's throats.

A tie is a decent result that follows the form of "win at home and draw away" that is generally needed for a safe world cup qualification.

A loss might have devastating consequences given a game vs Qatar next.

The boys need to be focused on the prize.


Ok that being said, I sat down and watched some of Uzbekistan's most recent games to analyze.


Formation

Uzbekistan started the same way in their two matches so far. They played a 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 depending on the phase of the game. Their front two of Shomurodov and Uronov are allowed freedom to roam and to be most of the offensive threat. Their widemen(Nasrullaev and Alijonov) had very fixed roles.They provide width and they carry the ball up the wings. Their midfield 3 of Shukurov, Khamrobekov, and Masharipov play close together to control the ball and to stifle the midfield when defending. More on this later.

Strategy

Defensively--> Uzbekistan plays a rather rigid structure with 3 CBs that hold their positions. Not a lot of variation in their movements at most one of them will step up for an aerial ball and the other two stay in line for offside traps/second balls.Their wingbacks fall back to provide defensive support wide. They have decent recovery speed but nothing incredible. The defending of the back 5 is more of a collective, providing support to each other.Their midfield plays very close together as a group of 3 and do not venture wide. If the ball is one side of the field all three will shift that way so the switch is usually on for the other team. When they start pressing they run together at a certain moment to win the ball and start a counter quickly. This is a strength for a counterattack and potentially a weakness I will touch on later.

Important to note, is that Uzbekistan DOES NOT keep their formation compact. There are spaces between their Defense, Midfield, and Offense.

Offensively--> These spaces in the formation are likely to facilitate Uzbekistan's attributes like strength and speed. They want to isolate players against the other team so they benefit the most.

One of their actual strategies are long balls with specific situations. They get the ball to their wingbacks who stall and then look up for Shomurodov or Uronov who start a run past the defense. This works with their speed and trickiness. They trust Shomurodov in a 1v1 or a 1v2 to get a shot off or to hold it up for the midfield. Uronov also is a dangerous dribbler and scored a nice winning solo goal vs Kyrgyzstan vs 3-4 defenders .Their main issue is getting the ball to them. Once they get it they are dangerous. Their midfield has well rounded box to box players including Masharipov of Esteghlal. They can take decent long shots and sometimes,(especially) Masharipov come in support to the strikers with late runs.

They are a threat on set pieces when attacking. Their LWB is a good crosser who can do a regular cross or deadly cutbacks. I worry the pace of our defense is not good enough to deal with a smart cutback so positioning is key.

Key Players:

1) Eldor Shomurodov- He is their primary goal threat, who starts the runs at the end of the long balls that Uzbekistan will send to test our slow centerbacks. He plays for Roma, got a contract extension, is in high confidence. Uzbekistan favors putting him in 1v1 or 1v2 positions. Our best bet to dealing with him is to crash on him when they look to give him the ball. If its aerial, doubleteaming him where one player does the aerial duel and another picks up the pieces will keep him off the ball for as long as possible.

2) Oston Uronov--> We know him, he is a good dribbler, need to minimize the channels where he has space to dribble someone 1v1. If GN's solution to this is to keep the ball aliasghari that's one way but another way is make sure our LB makes it their job to follow him everywhere on that side and to not commit to any early challenges.

3) Jaloliddin Masharipov- We know him too, he connects Uzbekistan's midfield and their attack with his passing range and ball carrying. Often he likes to make a late run into the box on crosses/setpieces/cutbacks and Uzbekistan's goal vs NK came this way too.

4) Sherzod Nasrullaev/Farrokh Sayfiev-->Their LWB/LB options. . I watched Sayfiev play against Iran, and Nasrullaev this last window. They both have a good cross. They provided far more width to Uzbekistan than their counterpart on the right side. Given that we don't have a solid RB at the moment it will be a challenge to keep whichever of them from getting crosses in. We need to prepare to minimize the opportunities or to be prepared when the cross comes.

5) Utkir Yusupov--> I make a point to include the GK as a key player here because he plays for Foolad and we have a general idea of his level so he won't be a mystery. Taremi and Azmoun are harder opponents than he has had to face for a very long time but we need to be sure to test him from long range and uncomfortable situations like set pieces.

Lineup changes:

1) I am going to sound like a broken record but we cannot afford another slow midfielder. Our game against them last time in Tashkent was a game where we gave away a 2-0 lead because we lost the midfield with such slow replacements. High likelihood GN says who cares and throws Noorafkan in there anyway. We need some dynamism against their midfield 3 that I will explain in our keys to win.

2) We have the personnel to pull it off but we need to know what we are doing with Azmoun and Taremi. If we plan for long balls to them, we will lose. Either play one or the other and let wingers add pace and dribbling to our game or let Taremi assist more with playmaking and Azmoun to be a finisher. A 4-4-2 might sink us here with how weak our midfield defensive capabilities are. We need a third midfielder.

My Keys to win for Iran

1) Do not fall into Uzbekistan's trap of spacing their formation out. They do not play their Defense, Midfield, Offense close together. There are obvious gaps. They are relying on their players to close those spaces with running. We need to avoid getting caught in defensive or 50/50 1v1 situations where they can outpower/outpace our older team.

2) Believe it or not, North Korea did AN EXCELLENT JOB showing GN what Uzbekistan's weaknesses are if only he watches the game. North Korea beat Uzbekistan's press by a central player being ready to receive the ball in the middle, baiting the press by the narrow midfield 3 and then QUICKLY spreading the ball wide to their onrunning fullbacks. This caused Uzbekistan's midfield to be taken out of the play completely and North Korea's players moved the ball into the half spaces in front of the defense.

This caused causing confusion between the wingbacks and each CB on the side of the back 3 over who should step up to meet the ball and led to chances for NK. Causing this confusion is something Taremi or our wingers like Torabi/Ghaedi are skilled at. I don't see Jahanbakhsh helping this unless he comes on as a sub but hope to be proven wrong.

Their outside CBs are not that fast so if we can get our wingers isolated against them after taking the midfield out we will cause them problems.

3) Aerial balls--> Uzbekistan is probably one of the hardest teams in Asia to score on a set piece due to their physicality matching us. What I did notice though is that they are trained to deal with standard crosses/set pieces mostly. Kyrgyszstan caused them a lot of problems with balls pinging around the box and both of their goals came around this way. Set piece routines meant to cause confusion can help us unlock them on setpieces as we have offensive threats of our own.

4) I would not recommend long balls for the sake of long balls but if there are opportunities for Azmoun to run behind the defense like he did vs UAE, rest assured Uzbekistan's defense is not as fast as the half African/Half Arab defense UAE had against us. He will find 1v1 chances there as well if the pass is done right.

5) Mentally we need to be prepared. If Ghalenoei goes in and tells the team that if they lose he will be angry etc etc, we will of course lose. If he goes in and sets the right attitude we will win. He has to make it known to our players that a win here puts us in a prime position to face Qatar for a chance to have one hand on a WC spot early.

Thanks for professional post.

....

Right now it's us against the world mentality,
General is master of us against the world situations.
Take this 3 points to the bank and deposit it,
Good chance it won't bounce.

[Keano]

They only show acl 2.

They showed elite league as well. I watched both Perspolis matches in their channel


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[Keano]

What scoreline do you folks predict? I think it will be 2-2

Playing in Uzbekistan has never been an easy one


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[Pluto2000]

Their outside CBs are not that fast so if we can get our wingers isolated against them after taking the midfield out we will cause them problems.

Your analysis is 100% correct. This game is going to depend on whether GN will start slow midfielders and let Milad/Hardani push all the way up instead of defending on counters. I posted an analysis similar to yours explaining why Milad and Ramin costed us the game last year because they did not help defend and instead Kanaani/Shoja were isolated in 1v1 situations.

This game is perfect for Ghaedi and Gholizadeh on the wings IMO to make clean runs and score a goal with their speed.

My lineup would be:

Beiro
Hardani - Zare - Shoja - Milad

Saeed - Ghoddos - Hosseinejad

Gholizadeh - Taremi - Ghaedi


Have Ghoddos stay deep and help defend and distribute with Saeed and let Hosseinejad add pace in the midfield connecting with Taremi and wingers with his technicality

[oracle]

Today I heard that Urunov will be match-ready for tomorrow. Also rumors have it that he didn't play for Perspolis last match so he is fit for this game against Iran. Not sure how true that is though. I don't believe many things coming out of Iranian media


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He was in pp starting line up.
During pre game warm up he hurts his hamstring and gets benched.
Uzbekistan tm said they want him to recover in their camp lured him there, pp agreed for him to go and recover there. All of sudden news come out that they will inject him with couple shots and he is go. Pp has informed Uzbekistan their displeasure of these move and has threaten uzb f.a with all kind things. A video of him was released of uronov practicing hard and looked good.

[oracle]

What score line do you folks predict? I think it will be 2-2

Playing in Uzbekistan has never been an easy one


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Tm will win
1 to 3 goal margin