Sardar Azmoun @ Zenit St Petersburg | 2019

[Roxanaz80]

I am HAPPY that Sardar bit the hell out of Ferbarbagheh. Good feeling. Good performance by Sardar.
Because of CQ Sardar returned to TM.
Lovely performance in front of Russian fans.

He came back because of CQ, Masoud, Taremi and the love the other players sent out to him.
Sardar we miss u man, we're a team, come back for us...such a cute TM, hopefully next coach will keep their hearts beating for one another.

[DR Strangemoosh]

Now imagine if Carlos had any balls and paired up Sardar with Karim upfront against Japan.


Hallalet nemikonam Carlos

Still can't believe how Carlos destroyed Iran chances by playing timid against JAP.

A 2 man combo like Sardar and Karim would have put pressure on JAP and make them
make mistakes like they did against QAT in the final.

But our tarsoo coach decided to play the easy way out and not lose instead of going for a win.

He must have believed his won BS about Iran not being a contender against JAP.

Aay to roohet Carlos

You are repeating yourself, perhaps expecting responses from people which they have given you and you haven't responded to but are just repeating the same message, but I need to call you up now.

1. Why do you necessarily think Sardar and Ansarifard would make such a good combo? I really love Ansarifard as a person, but he has not performed for Iran as much as we all would have hoped, apart from a few lovely moments which we can all remember (in comparison with our other forwards). Why would he necessarily make a good combination with Sardar? Karim's best position is a striker, and within the context of how we have to play with Iran (we don't have the midfield talent of teams like Japan, or even the talent we had in the mid-2000s to feed our forwards) how in God's green earth could we accommodate two out-and-out forwards?

2. Without Queiroz, Azmoun wouldn't be where he is. He gave the chance to him from a young age which other predecessor national team coaches would not have done, and have not done in comparable scenarios. There is literally no debate here. You just have to compare how Queiroz brought him in and integrated him into the team with the previous coaches when they had any such young talents in their team. No way would they have pushed out a stagnant stalwart to integrate a young starlet. Or even a stalwart (Daei) for a player at peak form in the Bundesliga (Hashemian)....

3. Azmoun effectively left the national team after the world cup. He credits his return, almost unilaterally, to Queiroz. Which pretty much renders the whole argument irrelevant.

4. Azmoun's partnership with Taremi has been the key to their success within the context of the system we had to play to maximise our players and what we have had. They were always better than the sum of their parts. When Taremi got that yellow card (which was a bit stupid but him but still I think it wasn't really a yellow) then that wiped out the Tsubasa-Misaki Golden Duo

[TM4LIFE]

Still can't believe how Carlos destroyed Iran chances by playing timid against JAP.

A 2 man combo like Sardar and Karim would have put pressure on JAP and make them
make mistakes like they did against QAT in the final.

But our tarsoo coach decided to play the easy way out and not lose instead of going for a win.

He must have believed his won BS about Iran not being a contender against JAP.

Aay to roohet Carlos

What? We lost because our centre backs decided to complain to the ref instead of focusing on the play.
You saw what happened when we actually had to attack. We got slammed on the counter. You think if we did that from minute 1 we wouldn't have been punished for it? You realize part of why Sardar thrived against Fener was because Zenit's midfield was competent and could work the ball up to him

[Leicester City]

What? We lost because our centre backs decided to complain to the ref instead of focusing on the play.
You saw what happened when we actually had to attack. We got slammed on the counter. You think if we did that from minute 1 we wouldn't have been punished for it? You realize part of why Sardar thrived against Fener was because Zenit's midfield was competent and could work the ball up to him

If an inform Torabi/Ghoddos (who is proven against Japan) was starting instead of Jahanbakhsh who was giving the ball away every minute then our defenders wouldn’t have had to work twice as hard as they had and we wouldn’t have been in situation. All goals came from our right flank. Also why is Majid not starting? He starts against top European teams, but gets benched against Japan?

I truly hope the next coach has a Unai Emrey mentality of not giving players automatic starting spots, that automatic starting spot approach may work with foreign players, but it definitely doesn’t work with Iranians.

[DR Strangemoosh]

I truly hope the next coach has a Unai Emrey mentality of not giving players automatic starting spots, that automatic starting spot approach may work with foreign players, but it definitely doesn’t work with Iranians.

Honestly, Queiroz did this less than any other coach we had FFS....

Just look at Branko's teams, how old are you? How can you ever put this criticism on queiroz when he was so, so much better than the previous coaches?

Look at Mirzapour's consecutive caps. Daei playing far longer than he should have.

Queiroz was much better than any other coach buy such a long way for being meritocratic and not giving people automatic starting spots. We wouldn't have had Beiranvand for TM so early (Mirzapour had 71 caps, 71 CAPS), Majid Hosseini coming at such a young age, many other examples

FFS this is driving me nuts how people forget and can't compare

[Leicester City]

Honestly, Queiroz did this less than any other coach we had FFS....
Just look at Branko's teams
Look at Mirzapour's consecutive caps. Daei playing when he was really out of form for years on head
FFS this is driving me nuts how people forget and can't compare

I did not single out CQ alone on this (hence why I started a new paragraph). But in our football over the years and under Branko WC 2006 all spots were given out and not earned. Can you remember of a time players had to fully work for their spot? Do you think half of our XI would be starting under Emery?

[DR Strangemoosh]

I did not single out CQ alone on this (hence why I started a new paragraph). But in our football over the years under Branko WC 2006 all spots were given out and not earned. Can you remember of a time players had to fully work for their spot? Do you think half of our XI would be starting under Emery?

I appreciate your point and agree with the players you would have started instead but I think Queiroz is by far the most meritocratic coach we have ever had, in fact that's part of his legacy - he as much as possible stopped the concept of the automatic starting spot. No more Mirzapour despite mistakes for 4 years.

He rewarded players based on their performance more than his predecessors. Still, he can't be perfect and there are individual things that I have disagreed with him for every single tournament. But they still are outnumbered by decisions he made which i initially disagreed with and he turned out to be right (majid hosseini, Amiri, Pooladi for Wc14, cutting out khalatbari, cutting out rahmati, many many others....)

Of course I think Ghoddos should have started much more in WC and AC, Torabi I would have put in front too. But hindsight is always 20:20. THe one game that Ghoddos could hvae taken by the scruff of the neck for AC, he went overboard and was really lucky not to get sent off. THere are other hidden factors - Ghoddos still may have not bedded in from the perspective of communicating with team-mates. This would be crucial in a team like our recent TM where the shape of the team depended on our players speaking to each other.

It's a question of looking at things on balance. Yes, there are little things here and there which I would do differently - 2-3 players in each line up I thought i would replace. But on balance this was the most meritocratic TM I have ever seen compared to previous ones - it's just perspective. No more non-stop Daei in nok-e-hamleh with Hashemian pushed into no mans land, Mirzapour for the 40th time and half a dozen starters who were not performing in any way for their IPL teams....

[beri486]

What? We lost because our centre backs decided to complain to the ref instead of focusing on the play.
You saw what happened when we actually had to attack. We got slammed on the counter. You think if we did that from minute 1 we wouldn't have been punished for it? You realize part of why Sardar thrived against Fener was because Zenit's midfield was competent and could work the ball up to him

Maybe if we had our most experienced CB instead of these kids that would not happen.

But Mr. Vengeful decided not to call him up at all.

Sardar had #22 with him upfront in Zenit not all alone getting frustrated and attacking players instead of the ball.

Duh!

[beri486]

You are repeating yourself, perhaps expecting responses from people which they have given you and you haven't responded to but are just repeating the same message, but I need to call you up now.

doktor, you have been repeating yourself singing hallelujah in praise of Saint Carlos for too long.

Just look at your posts history.

You are as CQollahi as they come

[DR Strangemoosh]

Now imagine if Carlos had any balls and paired up Sardar with Karim upfront against Japan.
Hallalet nemikonam Carlos

Still can't believe how Carlos destroyed Iran chances by playing timid against JAP.
A 2 man combo like Sardar and Karim would have put pressure on JAP and make them
make mistakes like they did against QAT in the final.
But our tarsoo coach decided to play the easy way out and not lose instead of going for a win.
He must have believed his won BS about Iran not being a contender against JAP.
Aay to roohet Carlos

doktor, you have been repeating yourself singing hallelujah in praise of Saint Carlos for too long.
Just look at your posts history.
You are as CQollahi as they come

Maybe if we had our most experienced CB instead of these kids that would not happen.
But Mr. Vengeful decided not to call him up at all.
Sardar had #22 with him upfront in Zenit not all alone getting frustrated and attacking players instead of the ball.
Duh!:

Just don't have colour bias like you bro and don't give a donkey's about any club team whether it's your reds or the blues or the browns or the fluorescent pinks.

So your "Mr Vengeful" "hallalet nemikonam "ay too roohet" absolute Bullshit doesn't fly when it comes to someone who changed our football, however flawed he was. I, and most other people on this forum, will continue to defend someone who gave some pride to our national team after so many decades in the wilderness. Why the hell would I give so much a shit about a portuguese man who no longer coaches our team? What's in it for me? Whether it is him or Mahdavikia working with our kids, we want to give credit where it's due and appreciation of the dozens of positive changes he made, short and long-term, which I noted over the years. What other agenda can there be, when you don't care about domestic football, other than the national team FFS?

You might find that, on this forum, I'm not in a minority. Even the majority of our PP fans haven't fallen for this shit propagated by the social media accounts, promulgating fake stats. You may choose to do otherwise but don't think that people can't see through you.

Only TM.

[Galactika]

I have a small quiz about Russian football:
Name 3 slavic players who's names start with 'Dz'

[DR Strangemoosh]

I have a small quiz about Russian football:
Name 3 slavic players who's names start with 'Dz'

Dzyuba of course
Dzagoev
Dzeko is a Bosniak so is slavic
Dzemaili is of Macedonian Slav heritage even though he is a swiss national

[Galactika]

Dyzuba of course
Dzagoev
Dzeko is a Bosniak so is slavic
Dzemaili is of Macedonian Slav heritage even though he is a swiss national

*gasps*

[teammelli8080]

You might find that, on this forum, I'm not in a minority.

Definitely not, you're in a large supermajority, but it's the annoying little mosquitoes that sometimes make the most noise. Like mosquitoes, they are also a bunch of blood-suckers. I've gotten tired of writing back, nothing will change the plasticity and simplicity of their minds, so I just let them wallow in their sludge.

[diz]

I have a small quiz about Russian football:
Name 3 slavic players who's names start with 'Dz'

Does my name count?