Iranian weakness yet again fully exploited this time by Japan

[Keano]

Our incontrollable emotions is our worst enemy. We have repeatedly and dearly paid for it numerous times in all sports, in particular in football. As you said all Persian gulf states have addressed this flaw for decades, and now the rest of Asia have noticed it as well. Our psychological and mental collapse was the main cause of our sudden decline and loss in yesterday's match.

This is not fixable overnight, it needs to be taught from younger ages in schools and academies.

[Foolad Khuzestan]

Our incontrollable emotions is our worst enemy. We have repeatedly and dearly paid for it numerous times in all sports, in particular in football. As you said all Persian gulf states have addressed this flaw for decades, and now the rest of Asia have noticed it as well. Our psychological and mental collapse was the main cause of our sudden decline and loss in yesterday's match.

This is not fixable overnight, it needs to be taught from younger ages in schools and academies.

CQ is responsible for that, throw those fags out of TM, you play for a nation not for yourself, i started to like Azmoun but i an wrong, he will never grow up, just look at his style he lives in the 80' , he and the rest who destroyed our hopes should understand TM is no kindergarten

[Keano]

CQ is responsible for that, throw those fags out of TM, you play for a nation not for yourself, i started to like Azmoun but i an wrong, he will never grow up, just look at his style he lives in the 80' , he and the rest who destroyed our hopes should understand TM is no kindergarten

What does his lifestyle and how he lives in the 80s have anything to do with his footballing career though. I don't get it?

[Iran_19]

We all love Carlos but criticizing in a right way is not bad. Japan analyzed TM very well and even before goal we were not playing that great, and we were not ourselves . I am pretty sure this game could have gone to OT or PK if that incident didn't happen BUT one more time, we played the direct game with long balls and we were hoping Azmoun would have outplayed Japanese defenders like the way he did the Chinese ones, but this didn't happen for few reasons 1) our pressing was very poor in this game 2) Azmoun was alone.
What Carlos did with direct and long balls, he kind of took our midfielder out of the game, and Japan took Ashkan(our best midfielder) out of his game by having two guys around him or pressing him every time he had the ball.
Love Carlos but this wasn't his best game as the coach tbh!

[teammelli8080]

We are the people of epic poems. Our stories have tremendous mountains and defying valleys. We wear our emotions on our sleeve and treat so much in our lives as a battle. This is one of our greatest strengths and weaknesses on the pitch. It is unlikely we will be able to get rid of this through "training", we just have to learn to focus that emotional energy outward towards the game instead of inwards and destroy our self-confidence like what happened yesterday.

It may be helpful to have each player built this independently rather than trying to build it as a team. In team format, if each person is relying on one another, if one person breaks then the whole structure wobbles. But if each person is strong and resilient internally, then we can all stand on our own while playing as a team.

It may be helpful for our football players to sit down with our individual-person athletes, such as weightlifting, shooting, bicycling, discus, and try to learn better how to overcome first the opponent in our heads before we focus on the opponent in front of us.

[soccerfan2018]

Can we finally stop this superiority complex? We are not superior to the Japanese in terms of technic or tactics. Have you ever seen how safe the Japanese keep the ball, lead, and play precise? Have you seen how many times we have unnecessarily lost the ball in this tournament?
There are some of our top players in our squad, Dejagah, Ghoddos, Taremi, somehow also JB and Azmoun who are able to play great football.
But overall, the Japanese have players who not only play abroad, but also belong there for many years to the leading players or key persons. Where do we have the players like Nagamoto, who played for Inter for years, Haraguchi has been an important player for years with Hertha BSC, Yoshida is a top defender at Southampton etc. Previously they had players like Kagawa, Honda, Nakamura, Okazaki, Hasebe.
We did not have any players who could ever last long at this level, the only one in our history who could do that was Mahdavikia and this one is by far one of the best players in our history.
The stories with Hashemian, Daei are not right, I saw them playing at that time (because I'm from Germany, I have seen all their games, not just highlights) Hashemian had only played well at Bochum, he was not worth mentioning at Bayern and Hannover, as well as Karimi and Daei.
These players were not consistent enough in Europe. What I mean to say is, it's nonsense to say we're superior, even though we really are not. Japan has invested tens and hundreds of millions in football in recent decades. This is not even about their league, which is not special, but the professionalism in their quantity.
Japan has established a system where all schools in the country have a selection and play against each other in local tournaments every half year! If you've seen Footballista (Captain Tsubasa), you know how it was, by the way, Tsubasa was the best thing they could do, they were so influential on the youth of the 80s-90s that they slowly moved from baseball to football.
These pupils were active throughout the country. The best players were selected and taken over at a certain age in university teams, these then either rose to the J-League or went directly abroad. The Japanese football network is very disciplined and close-knit, they are capturing an extremely large number of people through their school system, and they can catch every single child in Japan into professional contact with football, because it's connected to their school system.
With us in Iran, a lot is lost, because we are not in the picture of what our qualities are, we do not know who really has talent, we do not know exactly how many players we do not even discover. In Iran you learn football on the streets, which has the advantage that we are very playful and on the ball, the disadvantage is that we lack discipline, teamwork and tactics.
Regarding the game yesterday, it can be said that we were far too afraid of Japan, we have shown far too much respect, unfortunately, CQ has also contributed to it by giving Japan the role of a big favorite unnecessarily and you felt that the players were very insecure and the Japanese noticed that during the game.
Even so, if Azmoun scored this could have caused the Japanese to get scared, but they would not have broken apart like we did.
We are limited in skillful game opening and CQ knows that, so we were more inclined to neutralize Japan, because in an open game the Japanese can become even for teams like Belgium or Colombia dangerous, even if they lose, but for us it is definitely enough. The mixture of the fear of playing openly against them and the fact that we really do not have the quality for it, has mentally blocked our team.

very well written... even though in my heart i was hoping iran to win, in my head i knew we were under dogs and your post clearly explains why we lost.
The best we could have done is to take the game to PK or play with 2 strikers.. Sardar as good as he is, he had no chance against Japan defense line.

[orbicular]

I guess the Japanese must have been diligently studying Iran games to subtly provoke the players into committing self destructive actions, which speaks volumes about mental prowess, something that separates the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson from most other ball players. Mental strength, a central element required to excel in any sport, does not evolve naturally; it must be cultivated and practiced with consistency. Even a competition of this caliber is a grueling process, and without mental fortitude, no matter how technically and tactically efficient a player might be, the objective cannot be reached. Thus attention to detail, staying a step or two ahead of the competition, and flawless concentration at every step of the way are an absolute must.

Which brings me to a relevant basketball story: In the late 1980s, Magic Johnson and the Lakers were playing a hotly contested playoff game against the Mavericks. At one point, the Lakers were up by only one, with a little more than 12 seconds left on the clock. The Mavericks were outstanding shooters, and they were super quick in getting the ball inside the Lakers' half. But they missed their last shot, with the ball suddenly landing in Magic's hands. By then, there were less than 7 seconds left on the clock and, with players from both teams congregating on the Lakers' half, Johnson, instead of passing the ball to a teammate, made the befuddling decision to roll it down the court, towards the end of his opponents' half. The play was so unusual that it momentarily rendered the players on both sides motionless. Yet had Johnson not done that, the Mavericks would have fouled him immediately, and with the Lakers struggling at the free throw line that night, their opponents could have easily tied or even won the game. But Johnson's brilliant play completely ran out the clock and ensured a Laker victory. It wasn't a pretty move, but it exemplified shrewdness and poise at a difficult juncture in a very tense game, a feat that is still marveled and raved about at various basketball camps today.

[AminGP]

In 2015 we were really good with our set pieces but this year we were quite poor. None of our set pieces worked against Japan and all of their defenders were successful in the air. Also if the long throws are no longer working we should try a different tactic. Not sure why we kept insisting on long throws against Iraq and Japan. It becomes very predictable and Japan knew all this too well.

[Camran khan]

I know we had this underdogs, humble attitude etc, but I honestly think we also underestimated them, judging from how they played in the previous games..

[Roozbeh-G2006]

Our incontrollable emotions is our worst enemy. We have repeatedly and dearly paid for it numerous times in all sports, in particular in football. As you said all Persian gulf states have addressed this flaw for decades, and now the rest of Asia have noticed it as well. Our psychological and mental collapse was the main cause of our sudden decline and loss in yesterday's match.

This is not fixable overnight, it needs to be taught from younger ages in schools and academies.

You are right my friend. Along with all the other training our TM players receive, I recommend appropriate classes and programmes to address this very issue. The fact that we are known and have a reputation for losing control of our emotions, all teams now use that against us. We are ok against weaker teams but teams at our own level win over us using this tactic.

[Philosophy_King]

In 2015 we were really good with our set pieces but this year we were quite poor. None of our set pieces worked against Japan and all of their defenders were successful in the air. Also if the long throws are no longer working we should try a different tactic. Not sure why we kept insisting on long throws against Iraq and Japan. It becomes very predictable and Japan knew all this too well.

Exactly, its a mystery why we were so poor on set-pieces, corners and throw-ins.

[Philosophy_King]

Can we finally stop this superiority complex? We are not superior to the Japanese in terms of technic or tactics. Have you ever seen how safe the Japanese keep the ball, lead, and play precise? Have you seen how many times we have unnecessarily lost the ball in this tournament?
There are some of our top players in our squad, Dejagah, Ghoddos, Taremi, somehow also JB and Azmoun who are able to play great football.

But overall, the Japanese have players who not only play abroad, but also belong there for many years to the leading players or key persons. Where do we have the players like Nagamoto, who played for Inter for years, Haraguchi has been an important player for years with Hertha BSC, Yoshida is a top defender at Southampton etc. Previously they had players like Kagawa, Honda, Nakamura, Okazaki, Hasebe.

We did not have any players who could ever last long at this level, the only one in our history who could do that was Mahdavikia and this one is by far one of the best players in our history.
The stories with Hashemian, Daei are not right, I saw them playing at that time (because I'm from Germany, I have seen all their games, not just highlights) Hashemian had only played well at Bochum, he was not worth mentioning at Bayern and Hannover, as well as Karimi and Daei.

These players were not consistent enough in Europe. What I mean to say is, it's nonsense to say we're superior, even though we really are not. Japan has invested tens and hundreds of millions in football in recent decades. This is not even about their league, which is not special, but the professionalism in their quantity.
Japan has established a system where all schools in the country have a selection and play against each other in local tournaments every half year! If you've seen Footballista (Captain Tsubasa), you know how it was, by the way, Tsubasa was the best thing they could do, they were so influential on the youth of the 80s-90s that they slowly moved from baseball to football.

These pupils were active throughout the country. The best players were selected and taken over at a certain age in university teams, these then either rose to the J-League or went directly abroad. The Japanese football network is very disciplined and close-knit, they are capturing an extremely large number of people through their school system, and they can catch every single child in Japan into professional contact with football, because it's connected to their school system.

With us in Iran, a lot is lost, because we are not in the picture of what our qualities are, we do not know who really has talent, we do not know exactly how many players we do not even discover. In Iran you learn football on the streets, which has the advantage that we are very playful and on the ball, the disadvantage is that we lack discipline, teamwork and tactics.

Regarding the game yesterday, it can be said that we were far too afraid of Japan, we have shown far too much respect, unfortunately, CQ has also contributed to it by giving Japan the role of a big favorite unnecessarily and you felt that the players were very insecure and the Japanese noticed that during the game.
Even so, if Azmoun scored this could have caused the Japanese to get scared, but they would not have broken apart like we did.
We are limited in skillful game opening and CQ knows that, so we were more inclined to neutralize Japan, because in an open game the Japanese can become even for teams like Belgium or Colombia dangerous, even if they lose, but for us it is definitely enough. The mixture of the fear of playing openly against them and the fact that we really do not have the quality for it, has mentally blocked our team.

Totally agree with you. I watched the game between KSA and Japan and that tells
you how good actually KSA became. They create so many good chances, played fluid
passing game (even when they were behind) and had arround 80% possession.

TM needs to work hard on its passing and attacking game. They were moments in the Tournament,
were we played fluid (against Yemen and China) but were not able to adapt that style
against strong Teams like Iraq and Japan.

[forzatm]

Can we finally stop this superiority complex? We are not superior to the Japanese in terms of technic or tactics. Have you ever seen how safe the Japanese keep the ball, lead, and play precise? Have you seen how many times we have unnecessarily lost the ball in this tournament?
There are some of our top players in our squad, Dejagah, Ghoddos, Taremi, somehow also JB and Azmoun who are able to play great football.

But overall, the Japanese have players who not only play abroad, but also belong there for many years to the leading players or key persons. Where do we have the players like Nagamoto, who played for Inter for years, Haraguchi has been an important player for years with Hertha BSC, Yoshida is a top defender at Southampton etc. Previously they had players like Kagawa, Honda, Nakamura, Okazaki, Hasebe.

We did not have any players who could ever last long at this level, the only one in our history who could do that was Mahdavikia and this one is by far one of the best players in our history.
The stories with Hashemian, Daei are not right, I saw them playing at that time (because I'm from Germany, I have seen all their games, not just highlights) Hashemian had only played well at Bochum, he was not worth mentioning at Bayern and Hannover, as well as Karimi and Daei.

These players were not consistent enough in Europe. What I mean to say is, it's nonsense to say we're superior, even though we really are not. Japan has invested tens and hundreds of millions in football in recent decades. This is not even about their league, which is not special, but the professionalism in their quantity.
Japan has established a system where all schools in the country have a selection and play against each other in local tournaments every half year! If you've seen Footballista (Captain Tsubasa), you know how it was, by the way, Tsubasa was the best thing they could do, they were so influential on the youth of the 80s-90s that they slowly moved from baseball to football.

These pupils were active throughout the country. The best players were selected and taken over at a certain age in university teams, these then either rose to the J-League or went directly abroad. The Japanese football network is very disciplined and close-knit, they are capturing an extremely large number of people through their school system, and they can catch every single child in Japan into professional contact with football, because it's connected to their school system.

With us in Iran, a lot is lost, because we are not in the picture of what our qualities are, we do not know who really has talent, we do not know exactly how many players we do not even discover. In Iran you learn football on the streets, which has the advantage that we are very playful and on the ball, the disadvantage is that we lack discipline, teamwork and tactics.

Regarding the game yesterday, it can be said that we were far too afraid of Japan, we have shown far too much respect, unfortunately, CQ has also contributed to it by giving Japan the role of a big favorite unnecessarily and you felt that the players were very insecure and the Japanese noticed that during the game.
Even so, if Azmoun scored this could have caused the Japanese to get scared, but they would not have broken apart like we did.
We are limited in skillful game opening and CQ knows that, so we were more inclined to neutralize Japan, because in an open game the Japanese can become even for teams like Belgium or Colombia dangerous, even if they lose, but for us it is definitely enough. The mixture of the fear of playing openly against them and the fact that we really do not have the quality for it, has mentally blocked our team.

Well said. I've said our current players aren't simply good enough to play in a top league but our fans say European clubs don't buy our players because of racism. Give me a break.

[PersianPrins]

Japan is a superrior team, and anybody who refuses to acknowledge that does not know football. They have way more players abroad, way better players, better football infrastructure and so on. Moreover, they left their star players out. However, you are dead on the money regarding emotional instability, they don´t have the clutchness and killer instinct required to succeed at a higher level. Watching Iran play even during the world cup was so unprofessional, they were acting like kids everytime the refs blew the whistle against them, they tried to kill the clock through diving and I have NEVER SEEN a team before argue about to take a throw in my life like Team Meli did, which I thought was an upright embarassement. That is why, I always said this: When rubber meet the road, I just don´t trust this team and I never will, until the Iranian mentality matures and become more cold blooded.

CQ also deserves some blame for not installing a professional attitude in his players and not having a better offensive tactics, but that game was due to that attitude which they also had back in WC 2018. However unlike back then, this time it costed them heavily.

[Bi-honar]

We all love Carlos but criticizing in a right way is not bad. Japan analyzed TM very well and even before goal we were not playing that great, and we were not ourselves . I am pretty sure this game could have gone to OT or PK if that incident didn't happen BUT one more time, we played the direct game with long balls and we were hoping Azmoun would have outplayed Japanese defenders like the way he did the Chinese ones, but this didn't happen for few reasons 1) our pressing was very poor in this game 2) Azmoun was alone.
What Carlos did with direct and long balls, he kind of took our midfielder out of the game, and Japan took Ashkan(our best midfielder) out of his game by having two guys around him or pressing him every time he had the ball.
Love Carlos but this wasn't his best game as the coach tbh!

Totally agree... Japan was weak on both sides of their defense even playing against Vietnam and Turkmenistan and we didn't play the wings at all. That Ali-Asghari crap was so painful to watch in the 1st half.

Had we played the same true attacking 4-3-3 in this match that we used against China, this would have been a totally different match but unfortunately we reverted back to the same old predictable defensive 4-2-3-1 everyone has been analyzing for 8 years now.

Any good Asian coach knows our weaknesses in that system by now and if we couldn't beat Japan in Azadi playing that style in a friendly where they weren't as motivated, it was unlikely we'd beat a highly motivated team in the semi-final of the Asian Cup away from home.

All of this played into the mounting frustration that ultimately cost us the match. Azmoun was well marked and grew increasingly more frustrated and because we were giving them so much possession in the 1st half, we committed more and more fouls to get the ball back which made the entire team more frustrated as the calls mounted against them.