Group B Thread - Iran, Spain, Portugal, Morocco

[persiangodfather]

you win congratulation no problem, dont try to provoke us becouse we all say congratulation no one talk shite ok ??

Wallah I didnt realize that member was Moroccan I thought he was Persian.. I would never try to provoke a Moroccan.. sorry my friend all the best

[OzzyOscy]

Not sure if a draw is good or bad honestly, there were two possible scenarios for us here:

A) If spain had won
- Would mean that if we got 2 draws in remaining games we were guaranteed progression
- If we lost against spain and drew portugal, we would progress if portugal tied/lost to Morocco

B) Current scenario aka draw
- If we get a win against either Spain or Portugal, we are guaranteed progression
- If we draw one of the teams (Portugal most likely) and lose to the other, we would depend on the team we DREW against to lose points against Morocco
- If we draw against both teams, we would be counting on one of them dropping points against Morocco; otherwise, both other teams would progress over us based on goal difference/goals scored
- If we lose against both teams, we are out as both would have a minimum of 4 points

As things stand, our current situation creates more possibilities for us to progress. HOWEVER, two of these involve games that are out of our control AKA how our opponents fare against Morocco. The only one that is completely in our hands is a major upset, a victory over either portugal or spain (or both). In my opinion, a win will be far more difficult for us than acquiring two draws. Either way i'm just going to enjoy our next two matchups, i mean how often will we even get to see our boys against Ronaldo/Ramos/Isco/Silva/Iniesta etc?

Let's not overanalyse this. There are 2 things to do:

1) Assume Spain and Portugal will destroy a Morocco side with an even worse defence than us and an attack that looked ineffective even before the Iran game. This means we will need to beat one of the teams to progress.

OR

2) Sit back and enjoy. There is NOTHING to be fretting about or analysing.

Remember that after only 1 win, 1 draw and 0 clean sheets in 3 World Cups decades apart, we have qualified in back-to-back World Cups, got 2 clean sheets and 4 points in 4 games, and nearly drew with and even beat 2014 Argentina. We can enjoy it now, while building a gold statue outside the stadium of Carlos, Iran's greatest ever manager who has matured our game and now we are a proper team, not another Saudi Arabia (sorry Saudi Arabia).

Spain and Portugal are obviously huge favourites, we've already got the overdue win in the must-win game, there's nothing to be worrying over. If we get a goal, never mind a point, that would be amazing. But just enjoy the final 2 games and see what happens. A draw while still getting eliminated would be MORE history and something to celebrate and be proud of.

[Camran khan]

Ronaldo...
His sprint was 39km/h.
His Freekick.

3 Goals in 1 Game!

39km/h??
Source?

[Dortmund]

Will any of our players who were subbed off for injury miss the next match? Ali reza was walking perfectly fine after, but I didn't see anything on Ebrahimi

[The]

So obviously we are going to play 4-2-3-1 Against Portugal.

The questions now are:

- Who plays DM alongside Ezzi. Ebrahimi or Hajsafi?

- Do we keep Hajfasi on at LB? The dude is bit too slow for a fast Portugal team. He was even too slow for Moroccan players at times yesterday

- Is Rezaeian a safe choice at RB? Sure he had a decent game ( although most non-Iranians rate him very low because he just seemed to give the ball away with his long passes).

- Does Masoud stay at CAM just because he's Captain? Or does a more deserving player Like Karim or Even Ghoddos take that spot?

- Who will cut off their Shoombool if we beat the Ronaldo?

[persiangodfather]

Montazeri--- PAG---CHeshmi---MiladMo
---------------Hajsafi
----------Ezzatolahi----Ebrahimi(Amiri)
--ARJ(dejagah)-------------------Taremi(ghoddos)
----------------Azmoun

[Leicester City]

Montazeri--- PAG---CHeshmi---MiladMo
---------------Hajsafi
----------Ezzatolahi----Ebrahimi(Amiri)
--ARJ(dejagah)-------------------Taremi(ghoddos)
----------------Azmoun

Switch Hajsafi with those 2 dms and you got yourself a deal!

Edit: Add Ramin in there too

[persiangodfather]

Switch Hajsafi with those 2 dms and you got yourself a deal!

Edit: Add Ramin in there too

IM thinking Ramin should rest and Montazeri has been used as RB by CQ in 2014

Also I think we should have 1 defensive mid infront of the CB'S but not 2.. I think Ebrahimi or Hajsafi would be the most reliable

[Leicester City]

IM thinking Ramin should rest and Montazeri has been used as RB by CQ in 2014

Also I think we should have 1 defensive mid infront of the CB'S but not 2.. I think Ebrahimi or Hajsafi would be the most reliable

Fair enough, but put Hajsafi ahead of Ebra and Ezza since he will be attacking so something like:

Hajsafi
Ezza-Ebra

[toopchi]

Ezzatollahi has to start at CDM against spain because of how physically dominant Costa is. Ebrahimi and Amiri could play in front of him to chase around iniesta and silva. but if we play those two we'll have no option for retaining the ball and Spain is really good at winning the ball back. Our best ball handlers are Dejagah and Shojaei, i like the idea of having dejagah, ghoddos, arj, and gucci on top because they're super physical and they can press the opponent well, i liked the physical lineup in the final minutes of the game vs Turkey. I think its worth risking the super physical, press hard up top set up against spain, because we'll probably need to play something similar to the Morocco game against Portugal.

[Arian182]

Holy fuck guys, I was sitting here watching the Persian commentary highlights for the first time and it finally hit me. We fucking won a game in the worlds BIGGEST stage and we have at the least an opportunity to scare Portugal or Spain, 2 of the best 4-5 teams in the world right now. That is AMAZING. Anything else is a bonus. ENJOY IT.

[milad_b]

Well according to CQ mentality against Spain, I think he use players who can run for 90 and have good physical strength. In that case we will see Shojaei, Ehsan - Ansarifard and most probably Ezza.

-----------Beiro-----------
Ramin----Cheshmi ---- PAJ ---- Ehsan (even though i hate it when he plays there)
-------------Omid----------------------
---------Ezza-----Shojaei-------------
AJB-------------------------------Ansarifard
-------------Azmoun-----------------

Possible subs, Dejagah/Ghoddos , Amiri , Taremi.

People complaining about shojaei (not a fan of him myself), please go watch the game again. He was the heart of our MD. He controlled the game for us.

[OzzyOscy]

When we played Argentina after a draw with Nigeria, he only made one change (Shojaei in place of Heydari) and even made the same substitutions (Shojaei/Heydari, Dejagah/Jahanbaksh).

Even for the must-win game against Bosnia he kept the exact same team and pretty much same substitutions.

However if he feels he has more options this year and is open to change, then he might do this:

------------------------------Beiranvand------------
Mohammadi*------Pouraliganji------Cheshmi-----Hajsafi
-------------------------Ezatolahi------Ebrahimi----------
Ja'khsh/Ghoddos/Taremi**--Shojaei-------------Amiri
-------------------------Azmoun/Ghoddos**-----------------

*From what I saw, Rezaeian was a danger to ourselves with fouls and losing his head. He could've been sent off. Carlos might not take that shit and leave him out, or push him forward to right-wing.

**I didn't see anything from Ansarifad, while Jahanbakhsh came off with cramp (might not be 100% fit) and Ghoddos won the deciding free kick within minutes of coming on.

**However I would be worried about playing Azmoun completely alone against Ramos and Pique. Two world class and aggressive defenders against a kid? So ideally you'd have Taremi there to help out too, and he'd have to play on the right (he'd be cutting inside and moving into the middle anyway). The other option is Azmoun on the bench with Ghoddos up front, if he can handle Spain like he did so many top teams in the Europa League.

[Omids]

Well according to CQ mentality against Spain, I think he use players who can run for 90 and have good physical strength. In that case we will see Shojaei, Ehsan - Ansarifard and most probably Ezza.
-----------Beiro-----------
Ramin----Cheshmi ---- PAJ ---- Ehsan (even though i hate it when he plays there)
-------------Omid----------------------
---------Ezza-----Shojaei-------------
AJB-------------------------------Ansarifard
-------------Azmoun-----------------
Possible subs, Dejagah/Ghoddos , Amiri , Taremi.

People complaining about shojaei (not a fan of him myself), please go watch the game again. He was the heart of our MD. He controlled the game for us.

I agreee with your last sentence. I put this up in other thread and will put it up here as well.

I understand that Shojaei had some missed passes but his role in this game seem to be to a defensive one, closer to the defensive line rather than the offensive one. In terms of distance covered and running he was right up there, especially off the ball. In the 69 mins that he was in he covered 7.2km off which almost 5.5km was off the ball. Shojaei averages just over 104meters per minute in the game. If you compare him with Ebrahimi, in fact, Shojaei ran more as ebrahimi covered 8.4 km in 82 mins, averaging 102meters per minute. The highest performing player, as per stats, was Amiri and he covered 10.4km in 98mins, averaging 106meters per minute. Check the Iran player stats in the following link.

https://resources.fifa.com/image/upl...chluxpzl1ymczj

[scuderia]

I think it's going to look like this vs spain:

Beiranvand
Rezaeian-Cheshmi-Pouraliganji-MiMo
Ebrahimi- Ezzatolahi- Hajsafi
Jahanbaksh-Azmoun-Ansarifard

MAYBE Amiri instead of Ebrahimi... let's see!