It's now been a few hours since the game and most of us have finally calm down a little. It's heart-breaking to lose, and it's always even worse to lose over an unjust call or the same pattern.
Penalties: They are not luck
Until we think penalties are lottery, we'll never win a shoot-out. There is a reason a keeper like Diego Alves saves 50% of penalties saved, but someone like Jasper Cillisson allows all 100% in. It's a skill both ways. If you study personal guides of top managers, they all treat penalties as tactical battles with intense preparations. What is it in Iranian water that we never ever win a shoot-out when it matters ? This was our 4th consecutive loss in a PK in Asian Cup, and the 3rd time in the last 4 editions that we've gone out of the competition in the shoot-outs. This no longer is luck, because even if it was, then it'd have to balance itself out somehow. It reminds me of England national team who have a habit of going out in QF stage of competition in penalties.
In the previous occasions, it was our pen takers who seemed psychologically overawed by the occasion. Yesterday, I felt we were much improve in that respect, but sadly Haghighi looked psychologically very nervous and beaten. I don't know why, but CQ with his vast experience at top level I thought will have Alireza shit-talking and winding up the opposition. As it goes with Alireza's personality, I wish he'd fuck around with Iraqi players. Do keep-ups with the ball, make himself big by touching the woodwork and screaming...doing the spaghetti dance, or hell even swear at the Iraqi players to take their mind off.
We had the advantage of taking the penalty first, so if scored, the pressure on their taker would be immense and we had that advantage 7-8 times, and Alireza never tried to add to their pressure by winding them up. I know some on here are beacon of fair play, but the match yesterday wasn't football. It was a fucking war. We should have gone all dirty and used the dirtiest of tricks to swing the advantage in our favour. Remember the fuss Zico made when Japan were 2-0 down in penalties vs. Jordan in 2004 and he totally ruined their focus and momentum, which caused in Japan coming back in penalties and eventually winning the tournament ? Hope Alireza learns from this, because he'll be involved in more PK shoot-outs with TM in the future.
What Now ?
What's done is done. AFC doesn't feel sorry for us, neither does FIFA. They love the underdog cinderella story and there is more chance of Natalie Portman being matched on Tinder with a PFDC member and shag him, than this changing. EVER.
We tried a new way of football in the last 4 years because it suited our players. But with Nekounam's impending retirement, starts a new era. We are lucky enough to have a good core. By that, I mean a keeper and striker who are both young and already very good, with potential to get a lot better.
WCQ draw will be made in July, we'll have to play for AFC Qualifiers next time too (missing out on all the FIFA friendly dates...not that it matters for us :lol: )....
Looking at our current roster...we had a few players already 30+.
Nekounam, Sadeghi, Hosseini, Ando, and Heydari. I think Javad will go, Sadeghi should as well. and Heyday is just not good enough for TM. Jamal and Ando still have a couple of years to give for TM be it as a starter (for Ando's case) or as a sub if a new talent emerges for Jalal's case. Other than that, it's a talented group of players who will be or will be hitting their mature and prime years in build up to Russia 2018 and further.
I hope now that there is no immediate short-term goals to achieve, we'll make a few revisions to the system and come up with plans to get our best players on the pitch and finding a system that brings the best out of them. A system that allows Dejagah, Jahanbakhsh, Gucci and Azmoun to play together. A long-term platform that builds the team around these 4 players who are among the best offensive players in Asia. We had a real lack of attacking quality when Daei and Hashemian retired, Karimi got on with age. Now, while not as good as those generation yet, this is a real promising set of players. Hope we allow them to flourish with each other.
With nothing important on the horizon (At least not until second round of WCQ which will start in 1.5 years), use the FIFA dates to drill the new way forward. We are run by a dictatorship, so at least we should get on well with arranging friendlies with other dictatorships. Get the phone out and call Kazakhstan/Belarus/Uzbekistan/Russian FAs and more. Finally set up a freaking game with Australia after 20 years....don't waste precious months setting up a committee of rich cunts analyzing what went wrong in australia. We all know what went wrong. waste no time and use the smallest of opportunities to our benefit and they add up.
I really want to use the "We have to fix our country first" excuse, and We have to. We are very under-performing infrastrcuturally based on our talent pool and potential resources....but people in our country aren't being executed for watching football as ISIS did to Iraqi teens during their game vs. Jordan. It's a damn shame that we have no friends in this world and even a pub organization like Iraq's federation is more competent than us.
I'm just gutted. When we came back twice with 10 men to make it 3-3, it was a feeling of "written in the stars" for us to win it....what followed with the most anti-climatic I've felt as a football fan since Stevie Gerrard's slip in last year's title-race. It really is a cruel fucking sport, and we aren't catching a break
Penalties: They are not luck
Until we think penalties are lottery, we'll never win a shoot-out. There is a reason a keeper like Diego Alves saves 50% of penalties saved, but someone like Jasper Cillisson allows all 100% in. It's a skill both ways. If you study personal guides of top managers, they all treat penalties as tactical battles with intense preparations. What is it in Iranian water that we never ever win a shoot-out when it matters ? This was our 4th consecutive loss in a PK in Asian Cup, and the 3rd time in the last 4 editions that we've gone out of the competition in the shoot-outs. This no longer is luck, because even if it was, then it'd have to balance itself out somehow. It reminds me of England national team who have a habit of going out in QF stage of competition in penalties.
In the previous occasions, it was our pen takers who seemed psychologically overawed by the occasion. Yesterday, I felt we were much improve in that respect, but sadly Haghighi looked psychologically very nervous and beaten. I don't know why, but CQ with his vast experience at top level I thought will have Alireza shit-talking and winding up the opposition. As it goes with Alireza's personality, I wish he'd fuck around with Iraqi players. Do keep-ups with the ball, make himself big by touching the woodwork and screaming...doing the spaghetti dance, or hell even swear at the Iraqi players to take their mind off.
We had the advantage of taking the penalty first, so if scored, the pressure on their taker would be immense and we had that advantage 7-8 times, and Alireza never tried to add to their pressure by winding them up. I know some on here are beacon of fair play, but the match yesterday wasn't football. It was a fucking war. We should have gone all dirty and used the dirtiest of tricks to swing the advantage in our favour. Remember the fuss Zico made when Japan were 2-0 down in penalties vs. Jordan in 2004 and he totally ruined their focus and momentum, which caused in Japan coming back in penalties and eventually winning the tournament ? Hope Alireza learns from this, because he'll be involved in more PK shoot-outs with TM in the future.
What Now ?
What's done is done. AFC doesn't feel sorry for us, neither does FIFA. They love the underdog cinderella story and there is more chance of Natalie Portman being matched on Tinder with a PFDC member and shag him, than this changing. EVER.
We tried a new way of football in the last 4 years because it suited our players. But with Nekounam's impending retirement, starts a new era. We are lucky enough to have a good core. By that, I mean a keeper and striker who are both young and already very good, with potential to get a lot better.
WCQ draw will be made in July, we'll have to play for AFC Qualifiers next time too (missing out on all the FIFA friendly dates...not that it matters for us :lol: )....
Looking at our current roster...we had a few players already 30+.
Nekounam, Sadeghi, Hosseini, Ando, and Heydari. I think Javad will go, Sadeghi should as well. and Heyday is just not good enough for TM. Jamal and Ando still have a couple of years to give for TM be it as a starter (for Ando's case) or as a sub if a new talent emerges for Jalal's case. Other than that, it's a talented group of players who will be or will be hitting their mature and prime years in build up to Russia 2018 and further.
I hope now that there is no immediate short-term goals to achieve, we'll make a few revisions to the system and come up with plans to get our best players on the pitch and finding a system that brings the best out of them. A system that allows Dejagah, Jahanbakhsh, Gucci and Azmoun to play together. A long-term platform that builds the team around these 4 players who are among the best offensive players in Asia. We had a real lack of attacking quality when Daei and Hashemian retired, Karimi got on with age. Now, while not as good as those generation yet, this is a real promising set of players. Hope we allow them to flourish with each other.
With nothing important on the horizon (At least not until second round of WCQ which will start in 1.5 years), use the FIFA dates to drill the new way forward. We are run by a dictatorship, so at least we should get on well with arranging friendlies with other dictatorships. Get the phone out and call Kazakhstan/Belarus/Uzbekistan/Russian FAs and more. Finally set up a freaking game with Australia after 20 years....don't waste precious months setting up a committee of rich cunts analyzing what went wrong in australia. We all know what went wrong. waste no time and use the smallest of opportunities to our benefit and they add up.
I really want to use the "We have to fix our country first" excuse, and We have to. We are very under-performing infrastrcuturally based on our talent pool and potential resources....but people in our country aren't being executed for watching football as ISIS did to Iraqi teens during their game vs. Jordan. It's a damn shame that we have no friends in this world and even a pub organization like Iraq's federation is more competent than us.
I'm just gutted. When we came back twice with 10 men to make it 3-3, it was a feeling of "written in the stars" for us to win it....what followed with the most anti-climatic I've felt as a football fan since Stevie Gerrard's slip in last year's title-race. It really is a cruel fucking sport, and we aren't catching a break
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