Iran-Iraq Revisited

[Lorestani]

I have been following Team Melli since 1997. The loss against Iraq was the saddest I have experienced. For the first time, I was really hopeful that we would finally reach the Asian Cup final and lift the trophy. Based on weeks of hard work, a coaching staff that finally seemed to know what it was doing, and the unity of a team comprising the right mix of young, motivated players and experienced leaders, I really felt it was our turn to make it. Unfortunately, we did not make it.

It might not be possible even now, after four days have passed since the drama, but I think we need to have a sober look at what happened. As much as it hurts, we need to go back, analyze the game, and excavate the reasons for our loss as objectively and thoroughly as possible. This is key especially in such a situation in which emotions boil over, distort perceptions, and perhaps even create an ill-founded narrative about our 2015 AC campaign.

To be sure, there can be no doubt that the referee played a crucial role in the unfolding of the drama. His decisions were debatable more than once, and Pouladi's expulsion was simply wrong. But is this really it? Should we really seek comfort in such a narrative that is based on the notion that the referee made bad mistakes and therefore we lost? I think we shouldn't. There was more to the game than that. In the following, I would like to draw your attention to some details I think have gone largely unnoticed here, details that in some cases raise questions about our own shortcomings, but also about the match more broadly speaking:

1) Players, Queiroz, and the majority of fans point to the fact that we were one man down for 80min of the game. While this is true, the argument makes little sense if its purpose is shift blame away from the team. Playing with 10 men against 11 is surely a huge disadvantage, but let's not forget that we had a similar situation against South Korea in 2012 and managed to win the game! True, Shojaei was sent off later than Pouladi and the game did not last 120min, but we managed to turn a draw into a win while we were one man down. Also, in this very game against Iraq, we had some chances to double our lead (for example right before Iraq scored their first goal, Azmoun could have passed the ball to Dejagah instead of going for the finish himself). What I am trying to say here is that Iraq was soorakh and that we could have taken advantage from that even in regular time. By giving the impression that it is impossible to win a game when your team loses one player, we give too much credit to our opponents and belittle ourselves. If we really want to be the best in Asia, we better act like it rather than pretending games become impossible to win against the likes of Iraq when refs make bad decisions.

2) A look at the stats shows that one of the major problems in the game was the lack of passing accuracy. While other factors were fine (possession, total shots, shots on target, duels won), only 59.4 percent of our passes in Iraq's half reached their destination, the lowest figure in all four Iran games! This was not a problem while we were winning the game, but it eventually came back to haunt us once Iraq got stronger in the second half. Again, even with one man down, we could have won the game in regular time, had we executed our attacks a bit better.

3) Williams has been criticized a lot for his wrong call with respect to Pouladi, but have you guys noticed that right before the penalty shoot-out, the Iraqi player who collided with Haghighi basically decided the outcome of the game without earning a red card? With an injured shoulder, it's no surprise that Haghighi wasn't able to block any Iraqi penalties; the surprise is that he was able to stand in goal after that collision.

4) As it seems, Haghighi was already injured before the Qatar game! Similarly, Dejagah said after the Iraq game that he wasn't fully fit. Azmoun, for the second time, had muscle cramps after around 60min, forcing Queiroz to make a substitution that could have been better used later in the game. Is there a reason why unfit players start games? Weren't there any alternatives?

All in all, this loss hurts precisely because it was so unnecessary. If we want to avoid experiencing such a drama again, we better start learning our lessons.

[Bessos]

If you ask me, CQ knew exactly what to do all the way to the final. Everyone knows Team Melli had that win over Iraq settled, until the referee changed the game...

Was that red card deserved? No. Why? Because even the referee himself did not realize he was sending Pooladi off the field until he was reminded.

I could mention tens of things that went unfairly for Team Melli there, but in the end of the day it all comes down to this:

If we ever want to beat the Asian Cup, we must have influence in the AFC. Right now IFF/Iran has zero influence there! You know what this means? It means the arabs can do whatever they like (e.g. pick a nasty referee for our quarter final match vs Iraq).

[Lorestani]

If we ever want to beat the Asian Cup, we must have influence in the AFC. Right now IFF/Iran has zero influence there! You know what this means? It means the arabs can do whatever they like (e.g. pick a nasty referee for our quarter final match vs Iraq).

I am not sure I agree with you. Iraq won the Asian Cup in 2007 literally in the midst of a nasty civil war and without any lobby whatsoever. Again, while referees and AFC decisions are definitely crucial, we must first and foremost try to look at ourselves and improve those things we have influence on.

[Doctor DOOM]

The difference between this 10 man team and that 10 man team against Korea is, this one missed a good player, while the one against Korea, having started with shojaei, it was already a man down from minute 1. And expelling of shojaei never really hurt the performance of the team.
In fact with his exit, our turnovers and bad passes were reduced and the team started to play better.

#ShojaeioutofTM
#NoShojaei
#ShojaeiretireNOW


But you are correct. Just because a team loses a man does not mean they have to surrender. Especially against a team that was weaker than themselves.
The fact that each time we fell behind, we pushed forward and equalized proves we had the capacity to go at them and score. Why we didn't do this more consistently and why after each equalization we kept on falling back and closing into our cocoon is beyond me.

We were the better team and clearly had the ability to score goals. We just didn't ATTEMPT it ... unless we were forced to!

[EKBATAN]

to me we lost the game as soon as we decided to slow the game down and hold the ball after we scored. the team was happy with 1-0 and wanted to keep it like that for 70 more min. which is not possible. as soon as i saw us do that i knew something bad was coming. then came the red card and i knew it wasnt going to be our day. even in over time where we kept equalizing i wasnt confident that we were gonna win. even though the momentum usually goes the way of the team that equalized but even with few min left in the game i was still nervous that we were gonna concede again. then came hajsafi ruining the first kick, i dont know why but i had these feelings that i couldnt see us winning in the end.

[hzv]

now that we are being logical:

1-we are perennial losers in p.k, the only reason we dont have at least 5 asian cups is because any team can get us to p.k and beat us. we are the worst in the world!

2-it was fairly obvious to "critics" of our tactics (i say our because if i mention any names i will lose you) that tactic is only good in case of a 1-0 score line. it was fairly obvious that the first team to score two and more goals will beat us. this tactic can go horribly wrong, when you ask? when shit happens! like a red card an own goal or a penalty. we really are quite one dimensional and dont let the gheyrati comebacks fool you.

3-our players are not mentally stable. mentally we are not strong enough to win the cup. our solid unified team shattered with one red card. you could see it. that is why we always lose on penalties as well and why we pull brain farts or terrrs or whatever you want to call it every time we get to the important games. we blame the ref and surely it is justified but what about the players who do these things?

4-lets talk about the mental terrs that our players do in every tournament: ali daei cant kick the ball out, zareh pushes a player in the chest, golmohammadi chips a penalty we needed to score to tie, kia misses penalty, bagheri punches player in the face, pouladi flops and stays down forever with the ref standing above him telling him to get up how agonizingly looooong he stayed down with his face in the grass, mirzapour passes the ball to the mexican, daei misses the penalty...etc on and on and on

5-we dont play football, we play a koongoshad version of anti football. we can play and score when we have to but we wont until we have to. we play a very methodical type of football which is closer to chess than to football. look at japan, they attack no matter what, it is about number of passes and shots very simple, out shot u.a.e 21 or something to 2.

6-cq tactics dont work for our team and it will never get results in an elimination type of tournament, why? because if it is not the refs, if it is not the brain farts, if it is not other teams or bounces and bad luck; the p.k will get us. we need to attack from minute 1! attack and defend not just defend and not just attack. we need to focus, calm down and play for the love of it then everything will fall into place.

7-bad substitutions, jahanbakhsh was beaten badly on a couple of plays, amiri was too inexperienced to all of a sudden come in and there is no reason for haghighi to play injured! beiranvand is just as good if not better.


people say we would ve won it but to me it was more than clear after the second game that we wont and i was all aboard the band wagon right after i saw the training pics but it all unfolded by the second game and by the third it was quite apparent.

[AminGP]

We actually did better this time in Penalties compared to previous asian cups. We use to lose the penalty kicks with the first 5 shots but we managed to keep the penalties going until the 8th shot.

In regards to Azmoun, CQ knows that Azmoun can't play a full 90 minutes so he brings them in the beginning of the game so he can give whatever he has and once he gassed out he brings Gucci in and it has been working pretty well. Gucci scored twice in last minutes of games. This boy is truly a genius !!!

[masoud nekounam]

The difference between this 10 man team and that 10 man team against Korea is, this one missed a good player, while the one against Korea, having started with shojaei, it was already a man down from minute 1. And expelling of shojaei never really hurt the performance of the team.
In fact with his exit, our turnovers and bad passes were reduced and the team started to play better.
#ShojaeioutofTM
#NoShojaei
#ShojaeiretireNOW
But you are correct. Just because a team loses a man does not mean they have to surrender. Especially against a team that was weaker than themselves.
The fact that each time we fell behind, we pushed forward and equalized proves we had the capacity to go at them and score. Why we didn't do this more consistently and why after each equalization we kept on falling back and closing into our cocoon is beyond me.
We were the better team and clearly had the ability to score goals. We just didn't ATTEMPT it ... unless we were forced to!

Shojaei was arguably TM's best player vs Bahrain. Not just because of his goal and pass to Dejagah, but throughout the game he was very secure on the ball, earned free-kicks, was spreading the ball nicely with very few turnovers, and provided great defensive work.
Against Qatar, he was not as influential, but the whole team was not as sharp as vs Bahrain. Regardless, Shojaei was still one of our better players, doing a lot of the aforementioned things.
Against UAE... he didn't play.
Against Iraq, he actually had a solid first-half, but was only substituted because CQ needed a traditional left-winger in front of Hajsafi and there was no room for a playmaker (#10 role) because we played a 4-4-1 when we went down to ten men.

Digeh khafe sho with your anti-Shojaei bullshit, especially in a time like this when he was one of TM's better players during Asian Cup. You see, when you say such stupid things, you lose credibility on the forum and consequentially everyone will think you are an idiot, and I don't blame them.

[O-ZoNe]

1) Playing with 10 men against 11 is surely a huge disadvantage, but let's not forget that we had a similar situation against South Korea in 2012 and managed to win the game!

Today my car had low tire pressure. I managed to arrive home safely and only drove 10 km. Would I try the same thing over a 100 km trip? Probably not a smart move. Your logic suggests that since we beat Korea with 10 men, why not Iraq over a longer period with 10 men...My point is, yes sometimes things work out for you, and you take 1 shot and you win, but in most matches you need more than 1 shot to win. Yes, you can beat Korea with 10 men, but you could also lose to Iraq with 10 men...remember there are a lot of factors you are dismissing...e.g., Korea was played in Tehran, a field, stadium, and fans we are 100% familiar with. In Australia, the stadium, temperature, humidity, many other factors were unfamiliar to us. A disadvantage is still a disadvantage, and it doesn't matter if you are playing Maldives or Brazil, no team in the world, none, would agree to play with a man down for that long. Why risk it?

[Siavash]

With Fooladi not red carded and playing we would have won by 2 or more goals for sure. Our problem was always at left back but CQ found Fooladi who soon became the strength of our defense, a world class defense as we saw at the WC. Taking out Pooladi by giving him two uncalled-for yellows, the ref tried to kill the strength and spirit of TM. He weakened our strength but not our spirit. I believe the whole game was decided when ref went after Fooladi, yet we could beat them on penalties.

[KasraKhan]

1) Players, Queiroz, and the majority of fans point to the fact that we were one man down for 80min of the game. While this is true, the argument makes little sense if its purpose is shift blame away from the team. Playing with 10 men against 11 is surely a huge disadvantage, but let's not forget that we had a similar situation against South Korea in 2012 and managed to win the game! True, Shojaei was sent off later than Pouladi and the game did not last 120min, but we managed to turn a draw into a win while we were one man down. Also, in this very game against Iraq, we had some chances to double our lead (for example right before Iraq scored their first goal, Azmoun could have passed the ball to Dejagah instead of going for the finish himself). What I am trying to say here is that Iraq was soorakh and that we could have taken advantage from that even in regular time. By giving the impression that it is impossible to win a game when your team loses one player, we give too much credit to our opponents and belittle ourselves. If we really want to be the best in Asia, we better act like it rather than pretending games become impossible to win against the likes of Iraq when refs make bad decisions.

Well put. I was thinking the same. I don't like how the red-card gave our team an "out" or an excuse for not advancing. This Iraqi team was soorakh. We could've beat them with 10 players, and we were still the better team even with 10 players. I feel like our players bring up the officiating as the main excuse for not advancing. But this is football, stuff like this happens all the time, and it doesn't justify not advancing over a team that we were clearly superior to.

[jjabbari]

I have been following Team Melli since 1997. The loss against Iraq was the saddest I have experienced. For the first time, I was really hopeful that we would finally reach the Asian Cup final and lift the trophy. Based on weeks of hard work, a coaching staff that finally seemed to know what it was doing, and the unity of a team comprising the right mix of young, motivated players and experienced leaders, I really felt it was our turn to make it. Unfortunately, we did not make it.
It might not be possible even now, after four days have passed since the drama, but I think we need to have a sober look at what happened. As much as it hurts, we need to go back, analyze the game, and excavate the reasons for our loss as objectively and thoroughly as possible. This is key especially in such a situation in which emotions boil over, distort perceptions, and perhaps even create an ill-founded narrative about our 2015 AC campaign.
To be sure, there can be no doubt that the referee played a crucial role in the unfolding of the drama. His decisions were debatable more than once, and Pouladi's expulsion was simply wrong. But is this really it? Should we really seek comfort in such a narrative that is based on the notion that the referee made bad mistakes and therefore we lost? I think we shouldn't. There was more to the game than that. In the following, I would like to draw your attention to some details I think have gone largely unnoticed here, details that in some cases raise questions about our own shortcomings, but also about the match more broadly speaking:
1) Players, Queiroz, and the majority of fans point to the fact that we were one man down for 80min of the game. While this is true, the argument makes little sense if its purpose is shift blame away from the team. Playing with 10 men against 11 is surely a huge disadvantage, but let's not forget that we had a similar situation against South Korea in 2012 and managed to win the game! True, Shojaei was sent off later than Pouladi and the game did not last 120min, but we managed to turn a draw into a win while we were one man down. Also, in this very game against Iraq, we had some chances to double our lead (for example right before Iraq scored their first goal, Azmoun could have passed the ball to Dejagah instead of going for the finish himself). What I am trying to say here is that Iraq was soorakh and that we could have taken advantage from that even in regular time. By giving the impression that it is impossible to win a game when your team loses one player, we give too much credit to our opponents and belittle ourselves. If we really want to be the best in Asia, we better act like it rather than pretending games become impossible to win against the likes of Iraq when refs make bad decisions.
2) A look at the stats shows that one of the major problems in the game was the lack of passing accuracy. While other factors were fine (possession, total shots, shots on target, duels won), only 59.4 percent of our passes in Iraq's half reached their destination, the lowest figure in all four Iran games! This was not a problem while we were winning the game, but it eventually came back to haunt us once Iraq got stronger in the second half. Again, even with one man down, we could have won the game in regular time, had we executed our attacks a bit better.
3) Williams has been criticized a lot for his wrong call with respect to Pouladi, but have you guys noticed that right before the penalty shoot-out, the Iraqi player who collided with Haghighi basically decided the outcome of the game without earning a red card? With an injured shoulder, it's no surprise that Haghighi wasn't able to block any Iraqi penalties; the surprise is that he was able to stand in goal after that collision.
4) As it seems, Haghighi was already injured before the Qatar game! Similarly, Dejagah said after the Iraq game that he wasn't fully fit. Azmoun, for the second time, had muscle cramps after around 60min, forcing Queiroz to make a substitution that could have been better used later in the game. Is there a reason why unfit players start games? Weren't there any alternatives?
All in all, this loss hurts precisely because it was so unnecessary. If we want to avoid experiencing such a drama again, we better start learning our lessons.

Iran philosophy of Play under Coach Quiroz has been to give up the possession but not the space. This has served us well in the qualification for the world cup and even the world cup, although effective not pretty to watch. But when an opponent scores or in the Iraq's game we went a man down all bets are off. In the second half, we were clearly told to defend the lead. All 11 were defending in our own half.
Given this ref's history and Iran having been penalized for criticizing Williams in group play, Pooladi's actions with one yellow card was equal to the refs in lack of professionalism and judgment. He put himself and the team in a position of major hardship needlessly. I believe that we had the game in hand and up to the red card incident we had played a more fluid game than the previous three games. We lost the game when Iraq equalized with one man down. BTW that game was not Haghighi's best game.
At the end, Team Melli showed great discipline, courage and pure refuse to lose attitude not to mention self believe that they were never out of it. The character and unity of the team was impressive. They were clearly a team and a well coached team at that.
I personally believe that had we won the game against Iraq we would had a difficult time against Korea. Iran is blessed with great talents, great individual players, combine that with a great coach and you will go deep in a tournament like AFC but to make it to semi or final it requires long term planning, infrastructure, management, financial support, preparation and patience none of which this team had the luxury of having. Korean and Japan should be studied as a role model of long term planning by Iran Football Federation.
I am personally very proud of the team and greatly appreciate their dedication. They gave it all, that is why the loss to Iraq and by the manner which it happened was so hard to digest. I also think Coach Quiroz has been a great addition to our team and federation. He should be part of longer term planning for not only the senior team but also youth teams.
Above all what was so promising from my perspective was the younger pool of players that rose to the occasion. They Showed class and promise. Promise of a brighter future with god given talents that deserve more than just a world class coach.
AFC cheated itself of not having #1 ranked team in Asia not competing for the final four spots. No disrespect to Iraq or UAE (as both teams over achieved) those semis would have been much more representative of Asia's top talent with Iran and of course unlucky Japan.

[Damavand]

I just want to point out something important. The psychological shock we received in this game after dropping down to 10 men was a lot more severe than the Iran-Korea game. When Shojaie got himself thrown out, it was not nearly as bad since both cards he received were warranted. In this game the first yellow was a complete joke because there was hardly any contact. The second may have deserved a yellow for simulation but Pooladi certainly did not deserve to be thrown out. The fact that Willams did not also give a yellow to the Iraqi Goalkeeper for provacation further proves this point.

Therefore I do not blame the team for having a huge OFTE ROUHI which caused the Iraqis to come forward and take full advantage of Pooladi's absence and score all their goals from that spot.

What Williams did to us was ruthless and inexcusable. Even Japan would have been defeated if they were put in the same situation.

[babak_iran]

Lorestani

I just want to point out something important. The physiological shock we received in this game after dropping down to 10 men was a lot more than the Iran-Korea game. When Shojaie got himself thrown out, it was not nearly as bad since both cards he received were warranted. In this game the first yellow was a complete joke since there was hardly any contact. The second may have deserved a yellow for simulation but Pooladi certainly did not deserve to be thrown out.
Therefore I do not blame the team for having a huge OFTE ROUHI which caused the Iraqis to come forward and take full advantage of Pooladi's absence and score all their goals from that spot.

What Williams did to us was ruthless and inexcusable. Even Japan would have been defeated if they were put in the same situation.

I agree we were so broken after the red card. It got even worse once we conceded the first goal. I still think we could have played this game out if we were a little smarter with 10 men and the 1-0 lead.

[Dejagah#21]

Just ask your self the REAL question: WHY WAS BEN WILLIAMS CHOSEN TO REF THIS GAME??? AFC knew he held a gruge against Iran after the Bahrain game and CQ,s critic towards him, so the risk of Ben (Arab) Williams being partial in his decision making was huge!

THATS WHY THEY CHOSE HIM!!!!