Should CQ look to switch to a two-striker system?

[Adesor Vafaseya]

I don't know my good sir, if you're going to support your argument that we were playing with two strikers using an older post in which you just state that as a matter of fact, I'm not sure I can say much to convince you otherwise. But I do request that you check out the heat maps for Dajagah for all 3 games and tell me if there's any way you'd expect a supporting striker to produce those types of heat maps:
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/players...tatistics.html
Based on those heat maps (and that was exactly my impression keeping an eye out on the position of all players from the stands, which generally gives you a wider perspective than individual cameras - other than overhead ones - can) we played a flat defensive 4-5-1 in the 1st game and 1st half of the Argentina game, a counter attacking 4-2-3-1 in the 2nd half of the Argentina game and 2/3rd of the Bosnia game and quite possibly what you would consider a 4-4-1-1 in the last 1/3rd of the Bosnia game.

Based on my understanding of the game we played a defensive 4-4-2. (or 4-4-1-1) with 4 DMS as I said earlier.
You are of course free to believe what you want.

[Dreamer]

I think the 97-98 forward line with Aziz and Daei was pretty good too GA jaan, but I totally agree with your statement and I think there are some myths that we need to bust here in PFDC in the next couple of months, so that we can fully get behind TM.

One of those as you correctly pointed out is the perception that we lack offensive capabilities. The 2014 WC team was the most high-profile TM ever IMHO (even surpassing the 78 and 98 teams) in terms of offensive capabilities and availability of players. At no point in the history of TM did we have 5 offensive players from top leagues in the world available for TM duty (Gucci, Ashkan, Shojaei, JB, Azmoun) - that's a total of 5 offensive players for an offensive formation requiring no more than 4 players! In fact, if we lacked anything on paper, it was defensive capabilities and I think everyone pretty much agreed with that before going into the WC.

The second myth is that TM and particularly IPL players had/have fitness issues or couldn't/can't keep up with our opponents. Most would be surprised to know that TM had a total traveled distance of 323.5 km (1.20 km per minute), 2nd only to Bosnia in our group on a per minute basis for the whole tournament and only by 3-4 meters per player per minute! On a per minute basis (including the whole tournament) TM outran both Argentina and Nigeria who were around 1.14 km per minute. So, it's an absolute myth that we lacked fitness or that we lack fitness compared to other Asian teams. In fact, we also outran Japan in the WC and were pretty close to Korea! Surprisingly, Australia is the team we need to watch out for in this category as their work rate in the WC was 10% higher than ours.

Third myth is that we lack pace. As far as top speed (km/hr), Gucci: 30.1, JB: 30.0, Ashkan: 30.9, Dzeko: 29.4, Messi: 30.3, Ibisevic: 26.7, Tim Cahill (Australia): 25.4, Honda (Japan): 30.3, Lee Keunho & Park Chuyoung (Korea): 28.1/24.9!

To understand where our offensive problems are coming from, you have to look at the heat maps for each player in the WC. This information is available for each player who played in the WC on the FIFA site. As an example, this is the heat map for Gucci in the Nigeria game. It's hard to imagine how anyone would expect a guy to score as a lone striker (or even if we had two more strikers upfront with him) when he's playing that far back from the opponent's goal (at the bottom).

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Top post good sir!

Unfortunately telling CQ to play with a supporting striker is like telling him to play without a goalie, he'll think you're crazy!

[Bi-honar]

Based on my understanding of the game we played a defensive 4-4-2. (or 4-4-1-1) with 4 DMS as I said earlier.
You are of course free to believe what you want.

But you can't have 4 DM's in a 4-4-2 Adessor jaan. You can have a maximum of one DM in a 4-4-2 and that would be in the diamond formation. The whole concept of a DM is that you have at least one more midfielder (AM) playing in front of him.

So, the lone player in front of the 4 DM's in your 4-4-1-1 would be considered an AM, which makes the system a 4-5-1 again, albeit a very unconventional one. TBH, our format against Nigeria was more like this new 4-6-0 system being hailed as the future of football.

[Camran khan]

I miss seeing Khatibi and Enayati together as our forwards.. Yadesh bekheir

[perspolis#1]

The one way that Iran held it together and did not look embarassing in the world cup was due to formation organization/fitness. Carlos Queiroz used a placemat method at Manchester United to indicate where he wanted players to stand at certain crucial points in a match. As for fitness, we didn't burn out in any games and got more threatening in the second half of each match.

Playing a second striker needs to entail that we have figured out how to hold the ball in a game. For the Asian cup, 4-4-2 would put too much pressure on Nekounam/Ando against younger legs. We are a team that, against stronger opposition, is more comfortable without the ball. . To maintain the same efficiency of our national team we have to create defenders with the same level of abilities as the squad that was at the WC. We need to find replacements for playbreakers like Ando and gamedictators like Nekounam. I think our wing situation is fine. The biggest problem in Iranian football now will be finding an Attacking Central Midfielder to hold the ball. We can definitely have a 4-2-3-1 work but the CAM would need to be able to hold the ball for a few seconds and let the other players shift their positions. I would love to see if Gucci/Azmoun play this position and let Ansarifard go up top. A short term fix for the Asian cup could also be playing Khalatbari in the role to hold the ball and add pace on counters.

[Siavash]

Not with the kind of Midfielders that we have these days. They are rather old and far from what they have been before.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

But you can't have 4 DM's in a 4-4-2 Adessor jaan. You can have a maximum of one DM in a 4-4-2 and that would be in the diamond formation. The whole concept of a DM is that you have at least one more midfielder (AM) playing in front of him.

So, the lone player in front of the 4 DM's in your 4-4-1-1 would be considered an AM, which makes the system a 4-5-1 again, albeit a very unconventional one. TBH, our format against Nigeria was more like this new 4-6-0 system being hailed as the future of football.

yes you can! Thats what we played.

I dont want to re-write again the whole thing. I already provided you a link from my post in F+ and explained it all there, if you still do not agree, thats completely fine with me.

thanks.

[Doctor DOOM]

Actually one CAN have 4 DM's in the line up. Hell, you can have 6 DM's if you wish it.
That is a formation. Just as any set of numbers in any configuration would be ... as long as they add up to 11.
Just as you can say you've picked a very offensive (or even balanced) formation, but placed totally different players with different skills in those spots.

But that doesn't make it sensible or appropriate.
But hey, one can always boast about ''revolutionalizing'' football formations this way. Who knows.