QUEIROZ vs BRANCO Discussion!

[NFL]

Do you genuinely think CQ has been a bad coach for TM from a long term perspective? In terms of sowing seeds for the future?

Yes in many aspect and no in one aspect.

I think we should always be free to criticize people, I have disagreed strongly with CQ on many decisions he's made.
But I just don't understand you, context is for Kings and the context is that we finally have a disciplined TM which plays professionally. What do you have against this?

I agree with that and I have nothing against this.

Why do you support Branko so much , a guy who has been only a malignancy for TM from end of 2005 onwards.

ha? why does my supporting Branko (which I didn't even do here, but still) has to automatically mean that I think low of CQ? I support Branko because he has taken Persepolis from the middle of the table to back to back championships in Iran and all the way to AC finals (for the first time ever in club's history), with players like Alipour, Rabeekhah, nemati, Mensha, etc. . Isn't that what football fans all around the world do when their team is successful? or has this become "haram" under the velayat fagheeh of Carols Qerioz??
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to the topic of the thread:

Look, this whole comparison thing is flawed! all comments made regarding the comparison of these two coaches on this thread are all subjective (except for the guy providing stat and even that is only one side of the story). before you can compare coaches, you have to define the context. You have to define a set of parameters by which you are measuring the performance of a coach.

You said yourself you have had many disagreements with CQ about certain things (my bet is that they were all related to player selection). but did anyone call you out and called you an Anti TM for that? I doubt it. why is that Soroush Rafee or anyone else who criticizes CQ for anything is automatically a "Vatanforoush" out of sudden? this is the shit that I react to. No one has inherited the TM. it is not "ersee". no one can give himself the right to call another fan the bullshit that you see on these boards, simply because they criticize the coach. and that is the ONLY point that I have tried to make here. I have 2600+ posts here and I want someone to show me one post where I have criticized CQ about anything football related! just one.

doctor, I remember you from 2004-2006 time here on this board.
stay tuned, more on this after the tournament, with a Cup in our record book, inshalah!!!!!!!!!!

[Roxanaz80]

NFL, yes, u r right, TM is not ersee, I think what we are trying to say is that when CQ gets criticised we are indirectly sabotaging TM's progress.
Branko might be a good coach at club level but he's not the right politician for our national team. CQ has the leverage and the cv to make people do what he wants. He's moved mountains, he continues to build pillars for us, he doesn't need to justify his every move.

Creating a harmonious locker room ambiance with the help of Masoud and other key players along with his technical staff is an accomplishment in itself. Effective managers know how to encourage solidarity, maintain respect within a team.

[OFFSIDE_1]

Even if one wants to argue that Branko is a great X's and O's coach, all that means nothing if you don't have the respect of the team. Branko was a spineless coach who lost control of the team in the most crucial tournament in football. A coach that did not have the guts to cut a player way past his prime, and to discipline another player for refusing to enter a game. Plain and simple.

[tooleh khers]

Also an engineer here. Engineers that are just concerned with numbers only usually end up being engineering designers for good cause they cannot incorporate the human factors, compromise, communication, empowerment of people, common sense and other "non-statistical / numerical" values into their work. The ones that can end up evolving to Project Managers, Team Leaders, VPs, etc..

All of what you say adds up to this:

[tooleh khers]

Even if one wants to argue that Branko is a great X's and O's coach, all that means nothing if you don't have the respect of the team. Branko was a spineless coach who lost control of the team in the most crucial tournament in football. A coach that did not have the guts to cut a player way past his prime, and to discipline another player for refusing to enter a game. Plain and simple.

Plain and simple...

[OFFSIDE_1]

Plain and simple...

Branko

Number of players in Serie A - 1
Number of players in Bundesliga - 5
Number of players in La Liga signed after WC - 2
Number of wins in WC - 0
Number of players refusing to enter the pitch in a WC tournament - 1

We had a player that for a while led the goal scoring in the Bundesliga. Between 2001 and 2004, Vahid Hashemian scored 34 goals in the bundesliga, and yet Ali Daei, at age 37, was our starter because Branko couldn't stand up to him and his agents. Talk about being spineless.

We had a Mahdavikia as a starter in the one of the best teams in the Bundesliga. We had 2 rising stars in Nekounam and Shojaei who would go on to become successful players in Spain. We had a 27 year old Ali kaimi playing in Bayern Munchen. What would we give today to have a player in the Bundesliga, let alone the top team in the bundesliga.
so stats mean nothing unless they're put into the right context. Not saying Branko is not a good coach. i would still take him over all of the IPL coaches we have today, but, to compare him to CQ is comical at best.

[OFFSIDE_1]

cq compare to branko, is simple, branko allowed mafia in TM, CQ removed mafia.

that summarizes it all.

[Abedzadeh]

Also keep in mind in 2006 we were grouped with an African team that wasn't, never had been, and still isn't anything in the world of soccer, not even in Africa alone. To top if off, the seeded team in our group was from CONCACAF.

Certainly, and what's even more embarrassing is that we were already eliminated from the tournament prior to even squaring off against this African team, making it the only Team Melli appearance in World Cup history, post-revolution, where the result of the Iranian national team's third/final match of the group stage was of no consequence due to suffering two consecutive defeats in its first two matches.

As a matter of fact, we were doing so poorly against this lowly African team, that the then head coach of TM had to resort to calling for the injured Ali Karimi to enter the game out of desperation. As some members of this forum who were in attendance can verify, (i.e. such as the forum moderator "Essi"), Ali Karimi refused to enter the match, in defiance against the instruction of the head-coach. This goes to show you the true level of regard, and "esteem" that this particular "coach" was able to command from his players during the time in which he was their active coach ..... irrespective of just how high Ali Karimi currently sticks his head up the ass of this same former coach (i.e. club > country).

[ramingeles2000]

Plain and simple...

either you're stupid or you're trolling. branko is a croat charlatan who's found a way to suck blood from iran for over 10 years now. no one respects him (or knows him) in international circles. He completely fucked up one of our best generations ever with his idiotic, spineless coaching. TM under him was absolute garbage to watch. if CQ had the players Branko had, we would be a top-15 side in the world, won AC 2015, made it to the quarters in the world cup.

also - perspolis and its traitorous fans can go to hell. Disgusting

[DR Strangemoosh]

Tooleh Khers, sorry it really isn't. Any Trekkies here? CONTEXT IS FOR KINGS

Key point in all these instances is that football isn't just about quantifiable things. There are so many things which are unquantifiable but massively important. If numbers are the only important thing for you without context then maybe go for another sport or hobby - the engineering mindset you are proud of is interesting but you can't put numbers on investing in the future and building something like this. Unless you can quantify animosity in the dressing room. I want to know an equation to define how drawn-out harmony in a dressing room decaying over time can impact long-term building of a football team's infrastructure and how this may impact on future results/teams/coaches?

CQ bringing forward a player like Majid Hosseini just prior to WC (and upsetting many of us here including me) isn't just an investment for immediate results, it is an investment in the future of that individual player, an atmosphere of meritocracy amongst iranian youths and TM in general. You can't put your number on that.

Regarding your stats, perhaps Jalal Talebi was a better coach for Iran than Tomislav Ivic?


Contrast with the Branko effect for TM.

- SPINELESSNESS: Sticking with one goalkeeper (Mirzapour) who was error-prone, and not even giving a chance to test other alternatives, and there were a few (contrast with CQ). Not altering his tactics and game plan, and keeping with the same formations/line-ups for every damn game. He just didn't want to experiment and try different players, he didn't like any chance. We had a series of very feeble performances in the 2005-early 2006 period but NOTHING was changed after them, and he had a lot more new talent at his disposal than his predecessors (remember poor Pourheidari who had a midfield of Fekri, Navazi, Halali to pick from)

- OUTSIDE INFLUENCE: Branko let himself be influenced too much by player agents such as Reza Fazeli who was in the TM camp for the World Cup, and we all know that it affected the team spirit. He also let Daei dictate matters far too much in terms of team selection.

- TEAM SPIRIT: Our team spirit was the worst for WC06 when players were even refusing to pass to each other, let alone speaking with each other (contrast with CQ and the tight-knit unit he has built)

- TACTICAL NONSENSE: After finally bringing Bayern Munich's Hashemian back into the fold, he pushed him out to the wing (absolute no man's land) to accommodate a stagnant Ali Daei, who was playing 90 minutes for every game, not even subbed out for young strikers to get a chance to get some game time.

- TROLLING: Bringing Khatibi back to TM, starting him and Enayati. Khatibi was a constant source of frustration, the worst finisher we have ever had internationally, how he had so many caps no one can explain (well, apart from Branko and Khatibi's agent at the time Fazeli probably).

- POOR TEAM SELECTION: When we had more talented players, I never understood why Branko picked Badavi, Alavi, Kameli Mofrad, Khatibi, Sattar Zare. He had a favoured group of players who he stuck with, who were worse than a number of their peers in IPL.

- OGHDEH - Falling out with his prized player (Mobali) when the latter refused to move to Dynamo Zagreb in 2005. At the time he was the only two-footed playmaker apart from Karimi and he was player of the year in IPL at the age of 21. He was just dropped after Branko's lajbaazi.

- STIFLING DEVELOPMENT - We had, at the time, arguably our brightest crop of aged 18-22 youngsters who all looked very talented including the player who was the 22yo player of the year in Iran. They weren't given enough playing time internationally to develop and ended up dwindling, as the coach just kept playing the same people for 90 minutes regardless of how they performed (contrast massively with CQ)

[paas]

Although we had 4 Bundesliga and 1 Seire A player in the 2006 squad, we got unlucky that three of those guys got inured towards the end of the season.

Ali Karimi got injured on March 4, 2006 and missed the rest of the season (3 months)
Hashemian got injured on April 8, 2006 and missed the rest of the season (~2 months)
Zandi got injured in the middle of April and missed the rest of the season (~2 months)

That team was not 100% fit and players were either just recovering or playing with injuries. Either case, it was unfortunate that we got hit with all those injuries.

It's not fair to simply state, "with Branko we finished 3rd, with CQ we finished 6th" without even considering the reasons why.
That's a 3rd place finish with several players playing in the top 4 leagues in Europe, and we still barely qualified out of our group with last minute tie against Oman, and couldn't beat China in 90 minutes 11 on 11, then we lost to them on penalties.

Couple of pointers here.
-In the 2004 Asian cup we only had 2 players in European Leagues (Mahdavikia and Rezaei)
-We didn't just barely quality from a 90th minute goal. Our last match was v. Japan which we got through with a 0-0. And we actually got a little screwed by the ref too. There was a Red Card PK scenario on Mahdavikia which the ref wrongfully called offside.
-we didn't draw China 11v.11. It was 10v11. Zare got sent off in the 48th minute (BS red card). And we were still the better after.

Branko
Number of players in La Liga signed after WC - 2

That's not how that works.
Besides Shojaei went to Osasuna in 2008.

[Martin-Reza]

For me personally it's a very sad situation, that my two favourite TM coaches ever fight like little kids all of the time.

Branko was a brilliant coach, but didn't have the name or personality to demand things like CQ does now - halting IPL, getting club players ahead of ACL game and so on.

As stupid as this might sound, I think that is one of the roots of this dispute, that CQ can achieve more due to some "cheats" in comparison to Branko.

[teammelli91]

I would like to see Branko’s face when Carlos comes back to Iran with either the Asian Cup or even a 2nd place medal.

Can you imagine after the tournament, Carlos knocking on Branko’s door holding the Asian Cup and a box of shirini tar to have chaei together

[Roxanaz80]

Think you guys are giving Branko too much credit in relation to this conflict, invisible troublemakers are using him as a chess piece. My interpretation, no proof.

[DR Strangemoosh]

For me personally it's a very sad situation, that my two favourite TM coaches ever fight like little kids all of the time.

Branko was a brilliant coach

I value your opinions (after all, you were one of the people who picked out Nekounam's importance all the way back in 2001-2002 when some didn't understand what he gave the team).

But I think you are wrong about this and affected by nostalgia, he captured our hearts between 2004-2005 especially with the laissez-faire approach to our tactics for the asian cup (which simultaneously almost got us out in the group stage but gave us some exciting and rewarding Kia-Karimi-Kaabi interplays against South Korea).... His little humble celebrations on the side made us warm to him.

But after that he just made so many decisions which were damaging to Iran's long term development in a way which is the polar opposite to Queiroz and perhaps his lack of experience and confidence let him get over-riden by others but the net result was that by the time he finished, we had a fractured, non-meritocratic, slightly toxic (player agents constantly in camps) team and it would take years for the atmosphere to improve and finally a professional coach to start building a European club-style setup which is largely future-proof .

His club achievements for PP have been great so I have no criticism there, but I don't think that relates to national team.