2016 U23 Asian Cup MD 2: 15/01/2016: Iran - Qatar; Time, Date, Info and Report

[Bessos]

After today's loss against Qatar, I can say we have been very lucky to score that late goal to make it 1-2.
Because if we did not do that, our fate would have been in Qatar's hands!! Ewwwww
But now, our fate of making it to the Quarter-Final is entirely in our own hands. We just have to beat China.
So we will most likely finish 2nd in group, and face Japan.

However, it is even possible to top the group. This is how it works:

If teams are tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:
1. Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
2. Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
3. Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;


Here is how we can top the group:

Iran defeats China, while Syria defeats Qatar.

Either way, I hope our players forget today's match and drop their stress. Then we will beat China and move on.

[IRAN300]

Guys I may be wrong, but a lot of things show that maybe we wanted that lost, or at least to not win this match.

It's either the tactic was deliberately strange and even more stupid or that Khakpour is terribely blind.
The whole schema was going nowhere but not only there were no changes at HT but Kamandani only showed at 60'.
It is understandable that the team was tired 3 days after a hard match, but still it was obvious that Kanaani just can't play as RB, and if the goal was to preserve players like Torabi so Mohebbi could play in this position.


Also with the very weak organisation of the team the 4141 was a very bad idea, with only Naghizadeh really defending and both Karimi and (even more) Rahmani being unuseful in attack. With the Qatari press on Naghizadeh there was no construction and most balls were kicked directly into Qatar's 18m without any constructive contribution.
Mehrdad Mohammadi was weak but Milad was subbed out while he was one of the few good players on the pitch.

It may be the coach's viewpoint to not play Pahlevan but he is a creative player, playing as fix in ZobAhan and it will be much advantageous for the team if he or Kamandani starts, and to put Karimi next to Naghizadeh in a 4231 to have a solid midfield with at least 1 creative player.


But as Japan beat N.Korea and either Korea or Saudi will most probably finish as the 2nd team in Group B, based on the experience of Jahanbakhsh and Azmoun's U19 team maybe that the staff decided to go in a direction which will lead to play Japan in quarterfinal instead of any of the 2 other teams which are either a bad memory (Saudi) or a complete unfamiliar but a strong (North Korea) team.
It may be nothing of this, but it would mean that the coaching staff is very amateur at this point to take these strange decisions about tactical issues.

..........

At least with the last goal, Syria and Qatar can't do any ArabBazi in order to eliminate us, we'll qualify by any way if we beat China, which is not out of reach for sure.

[ehsan singapore]

i will say one thing , we lost because of the coach, not playing torabi, what was he thinking, smoking?and bringing him so late and not scoring peanlty, jeasus

[Z Joon]

We need to play this lineup vs China and save our asses after today's disaster



This is our best 11 yet Khakpour never uses it! Hopefully he wakes up and plays a more conservative game from now on because really, today was a real disaster. Only Barca can play with a D-line like that, from the first min I saw how we were placed I knew we were going to be in trouble...

[Iran_19]

Torabi is joy to watch, only a guy like Khakpour could ruin such a team, any top 3-4 IPL coaches should be able to get the job done, if idea was not using foreign coaches.
Veisi, Ali Mansour, Yahya, even GN and Mazloumi could do much much better than this guy.
Heyf!

[saeed_noro]

We lost before the tournament started, sorry...

we need our best players (Azmoun, Ezatollahi, Taremi, and also some other....)

we learned the offside-trap and i like it, it is very good that we learn it, and we learn also when we fail to do it, i have no problem with this, because this is a tactic of football and i never see this before by iranian. you see this in bayern or barcelona for example, and we try to defend very high next to the middle of the pitch, and this is good for our football development,

BUT

offensive football we have no quality, sorry, some players play left flank, but only can dribble with right foot, we lack in this and in passing, and in creating goal chances, sorry, we had no chances, we celebrate an penalty (actually most iranian player do this...) before we really score it...

All in all, we will lose in quarterfinal, no olympic qualification, and probably we also just draw china..

[mehdiKia15]

Young players playing wrong positions and inexperience coach= correct result.
I don't know why Khakpour was smiling after the game...I was not impressed by the tactics at all, including like most of you guys said why the hell is torabi not starting.Maybe Khakpour was sabotaging our chances.He did quit on this team before.Once a a quitter always a quitter.

[Ghermez Agha]

We need to play this lineup vs China and save our asses after today's disaster




This is our best 11 yet Khakpour never uses it! Hopefully he wakes up and plays a more conservative game from now on because really, today was a real disaster. Only Barca can play with a D-line like that, from the first min I saw how we were placed I knew we were going to be in trouble...

Agreed the only difference I would like to see would be to slide Mohammadi back to LB Pahlevan over to LM and then have Kamandani behind Motahari he has been a good spark in both games and deserves at least 60-70 minutes next game

[Iran_19]

We need to play this lineup vs China and save our asses after today's disaster



This is our best 11 yet Khakpour never uses it! Hopefully he wakes up and plays a more conservative game from now on because really, today was a real disaster. Only Barca can play with a D-line like that, from the first min I saw how we were placed I knew we were going to be in trouble...

Totally agree, great line up. I didn't mind Heydarieh game, he was creating way more chances than Kanani in right but was weak in defense maybe but then when you are behind you leave too many holes back.
Our D is too slow, playing too many guys out position in defense will hurt you at some point, you can have one, not 3 guys who play out position in your back 4.That is suicide.

[Camran khan]

If we manage to qualify, IFF should beg Mansourian to take his job back lmao.

[Z Joon]

We lost before the tournament started, sorry...

we need our best players (Azmoun, Ezatollahi, Taremi, and also some other....)

we learned the offside-trap and i like it, it is very good that we learn it, and we learn also when we fail to do it, i have no problem with this, because this is a tactic of football and i never see this before by iranian. you see this in bayern or barcelona for example, and we try to defend very high next to the middle of the pitch, and this is good for our football development,

BUT

offensive football we have no quality, sorry, some players play left flank, but only can dribble with right foot, we lack in this and in passing, and in creating goal chances, sorry, we had no chances, we celebrate an penalty (actually most iranian player do this...) before we really score it...

All in all, we will lose in quarterfinal, no olympic qualification, and probably we also just draw china..

Taremi is ineligible. Yes offside trap is nice but not with such a defensive formation and players out of position all over the place! Kanaani is a pure CB, not even a ball playing one, most likely the slowest player in this 23 men squad goalkeepers included, and this is the consequence when we are so high up the pitch, he obviously can't make back and forth runs from the middle. I have no idea how Khakpour decided to do that. We can also play like this vs weaker teams but not at this level considering how error prone and costly this strategy can be...

Players like Rahmani or even Mehrdad Mohammadi are terrible for this type of game and we actually have better players that would've suited better, but even this aside Khakpour got it all wrong today I'm afraid

[arasradio]

^^it might be a blessing in disuse for us. i rather play japan than Saudi.
If we finish 1st and play Saudi, with current situation we would loss to saudi
plus, between Sauid and Qatar one will be eliminated

It will be Qatar going to semis for sure. Qatar is set to be in Rio

In regards with us playing Japan or Saudi, doesn't really matter if we go 100% and play TOURABI and KAMANDANI from start!

If we want to play in olymics we must be good to beat Japan or any team to be among the 3 qualified... And also you never know what really happens in this group. Things can change dramatically.

I give you this funny Scenario {very unlikely to happen considering the strength of Qatari side}

Last day:

Syria 2 Qatar 0
Iran 1 China 0

1- Iran 6 points +2 (considering Direct H2H against Syria then GD)
2- Syria 6 points +1 (considering Direct H2H against Qatar then GD)
3- Qatar 6 points + 1
4- China

Well, it most likely won't happen. As most likely Qatar will beat or tie Syria.
But the 3rd game is who scores more kind of game. On paper China is of eliminated. Why?
Let's look at this scenario:

Syria 0 Qatar 2
Iran 0 China 3 (unreal but just let's imagine worst case)

1- Qatar 9
2- China 3 (-1)
3- Iran 3 (-2)
4- Syria 3 (-2)

Funny situation.

But this is my prediction (very likely in paper)

Qatar 1 Syria 0
Iran 1 China 0

Qatar and Iran qualify

[Bessos]

^ Iran will 100% beat China on paper, but there is something that is the biggest obstacle to TM Omid at this moment, and that is the stress.

They need to lose that stress before facing China, or we are doomed.

We will see...

[Zamboor]

We need to play this lineup vs China and save our asses after today's disaster



This is our best 11 yet Khakpour never uses it! Hopefully he wakes up and plays a more conservative game from now on because really, today was a real disaster. Only Barca can play with a D-line like that, from the first min I saw how we were placed I knew we were going to be in trouble...

Agreed. We cant play with one DM as we did today, either 2 cm who are ball winning midfielders or just give the win to the other team. plus torabi should start

[eerooni]

ALL OUR TM from the start of the revolution have lost all self confidence, the trend is obvious, we win tough games, lose easy ones, we play excellent in one game and play a completely different low quality game the next. under CQ, this is what he has fixed more or less, Iranian coaches cant fix this as they suffer the same problem....