Players Deserving of a World Cup Roster

[inarsenewetrust]

omitting a resurging AK8 (who's exemplary leadership on and off the pitch got CQ through his very rough early patches..!) and to a bit lesser extent Sardar who regardless of his inexperience @ the time, was a clear, massive improvement over the stock at hand in our attacking line , from the WC14, pissed me off the most....!
especially considering the gross over-commitment to excessive number of Defenders or defensive in nature players ..! especially instead opting to take along the likes of injured, useless Beikdzade or the over-rated glory-hunter Beitashour or avg @ best caliber Alenemeh... etc..!!
and the mistake came back to bite us in dat asss big time in our must win 3rd match vs Bosnia ..!
btw unlike most Khalatbari's absence didnt bother me much... to me he was a just a lightweight, 1-2Trick, show-pony with very limited defensive quality who badly lacked team discipline and way too frequently cowboy his own ways of playing on the pitch..!

I think that a team with Ali Karimi, Azmoun, Khalatbari as options would have given us a much better chance vs bosnia. Our guys seemed tired asf and needed some new blood injected in that match. OFC, easy to say in hindsight as CQ had a strict system that required everybody to be 100% accurate with their individual jobs in the system. any player not fulfilling that duty would render the system useless. Having said that, Beikzadeh, Alenemeh, Beitashour contributed nothing to that system.

[Galactika]

@ the time, was a clear, massive improvement over the stock

This sentence is a lot familiar to me. *Winks at KC Mcelroy

[Kiarash]

Sardar Azmoun in 2014. We only had two real centre forwards in the squad in that World Cup, it was a bit ridiculous.

[DR Strangemoosh]

Mobali in 2006 when he was reigning IPL player of the year at the age of 23, had been a breakthrough star of Iran's previous international tournament.

All because he didn't want to accept that move to Dynamo Zagreb....

[DR Strangemoosh]

I was truly amazed that a player like Khalatbari (he was one of my most favorite TM players at the time too) was left behind. In the left side, it was between him and Hajsafi and CQ went with the latter. Hajsafi though, played an amazing WC in 2014. Specially against Argentina, he had cancelled out Messi during the whole game. Messi could score only after Hajsafi was subbed out.

This is news to me... CQ had Khalatbari in the trequartista role, since when was it a decision between him and Hajsafi for the left side?

I always thought the decision not to take Khalatbari was that he thought he would be too lightweight against Nigeria and Bosnia (a decision which I strongly disagreed with when Queiroz made it, alongside not taking the young Azmoun, although in the end he was vindicated as we returned with heads held high).

[Sly]

This is news to me... CQ had Khalatbari in the trequartista role, since when was it a decision between him and Hajsafi for the left side?
I always thought the decision not to take Khalatbari was that he thought he would be too lightweight against Nigeria and Bosnia (a decision which I strongly disagreed with when Queiroz made it, alongside not taking the young Azmoun, although in the end he was vindicated as we returned with heads held high).

These positions are blurry and depend on the opponent and tactics. Khalatbari played as LAM. Both him and Hajsafi played the same position at the time. Yes Khalatbari was too lightweight hence CQ went with Hajsafi who was a bit heavier than the former.

[Sepehr9]

One point of critique that i have on both Ivankovic and Queiroz is that they didn't take the creative and naturally gifted (born with talent) players with them to the world cup, even though they did use them during the world cup qualifiers.

For Branko Ivankovic it was Mobali and Azizi, without these two he would've never been able to guide Iran to the world cup, as they were the biggest factors Iran beat Qatar in the do or die game in Doha. Also, the fact that he didn't invite Karim Bagheri to Team e Melli who was playing outstanding for Perspolis at the time, and selected the likes of Khatibi, Enayati and Madanchi over Bagheri who was 32 years at the time, Azizi who was 34 years of age and Mobali is a crime.

The same goes for Queiroz in 2014, where he left Karimi and Khalatbari our two most technically gifted players at the time for the likes of average Heydari and Reza Hagighi who lacked any creativity, is a real shame. He also should've invited Azmoun over Steven Beitashour as we already had too many defenders, and Steven just wasn't good enough to make the cut.

Blazevic did the same with Azizi in 2002 by the way. But at least he was bold enough to play Karim Bagheri the great, which resulted in beautiful football for us.

What i'm trying to say is that unfortunately our coachez so far have been too conservative to play real football, and that's a real shame. IFF should invest in bringing coaches who are not afraid to play their best players and adopt a strategy that produces the best results without hiding behind physically stronger players with zero creativity, there should be a balance.

[Nokhodi]

Karim Bagheri in 2006 would have been amazing. He wasn't in the qualifiers but he was starting to play well again after a few years where he had really lost the motivation to play football it seemed.

[Nokhodi]

Also Khalatbari only got mad at CQ after he was cut from TM, otherwise he was very respectful until that point.
CQ himself has said cutting Khalatbari was one of the hardest footballing decisions he's ever made.