TM-News-Vol. 6

[mehdi13]

I believe in the theory that club form does not translate into national team form unfortunately

It doesn’t. Just look at Masoud. In Spain he would be abusing Atletico’s defenders and in the next TM game he looked like he just started playing.

[inarsenewetrust]

I believe in the theory that club form does not translate into national team form unfortunately

well taremi and azmoun have produced for TM for a damn long time.

[Nokhodi]

well taremi and azmoun have produced for TM for a damn long time.

Khoda az dahanet beshanve. Considering most games will likely be played in June in brutal Persian Gulf heat and humidity after a long European season for most of our legionnaires, I'm not very optimistic about our play and chances unfortunately.

[Futbaldoost]

I agree that club success does not guarantee success at country level AND there is clear evidence that if and when a national team of great club talent has been able to stay in a tournament (e.g. Spain in WC 2010, England in WC 2018, France in WC 2018) they have been able to do quite well and start gelling together. The example of Spain WC 2010 is a clear one since they started the tournament with a loss to the Swiss and went on to win the whole thing. Notice that I have taken the home court advantage out of the equation since it throws things off and that's why I did not use the examples of France 1998 or England 1966 for that matter. Here I am going to my previous point about a centralized tournament style matches in Qatar in June for the remaining four matches of this WC qualifying stage. We already have great talent playing in decent professional levels with good results (notice I am trying to be conservative here). At least from quantity of players perspective, we have never had this many in Europe. I think the scenario of centralized WC AFC qualifiers in Qatar in June could translate to great success for TM assuming most of our best players stay healthy and fit and our technical cadre does the minimum required that I think they will.

Go TM!

[Nokhodi]

Forgive me, I am just remembering the horrible combined qualification tournament we had in Qatar in 93 for WC 94

[Futbaldoost]

Khoda az dahanet beshanve. Considering most games will likely be played in June in brutal Persian Gulf heat and humidity after a long European season for most of our legionnaires, I'm not very optimistic about our play and chances unfortunately.

Again, the Stadiums in Qatar have a great air conditioning system at the pitch level. Heat will be a problem during training not during the matches and it will apply to all the teams. All the other teams in Iran's group may have a slight advantage since they have high temperature and very humid summers in their countries yet I don't think it will be a big factor against TM.

Go TM!

[Nokhodi]

Again, the Stadiums in Qatar have a great air conditioning at the pitch level. Heat will be a problem during training not during the matches and it will apply to all the teams. All the other teams in Iran's group may have a slight advantage since they have high temperature humid summers in their countries yet I don't think it will be a big factor against TM.

Go TM!

The PGCC countries (Iraq, Bahrain) have much lighter seasons and they come in motivated to play us at a ideological level.
Mental and physical - I'm not concerned about the technical as we are the best in Asia on that account.

[Futbaldoost]

The PGCC countries (Iraq, Bahrain) have much lighter seasons and they come in motivated to play us at a ideological level.
Mental and physical - I'm not concerned about the technical as we are the best in Asia on that account.

Yet again you have a valid point AND it's a double edged sword if you will. Meaning that longer seasons in more competitive leagues (even IPL for that matter) increases the chance of fatigue and injury yet at the same time prepares our players better. I take this latter one any day. I also think we have our gheyrat (grit ) to confront their ideological motivation. This is again kind of funny for me personally that I find myself on the "optimist" side in this forum and on this topic of discussion since I am inherently a "pessimist" (I put both of them in quotes since they are loaded and qualified terms). I also find all your points valid that need addressing.

Go TM!

[perspolis#1]

The PGCC countries (Iraq, Bahrain) have much lighter seasons and they come in motivated to play us at a ideological level.
Mental and physical - I'm not concerned about the technical as we are the best in Asia on that account.

I think we overestimate the mental preparedness of Arab countries against us.

Arab teams play us with passion and its their goal to bring us down. They absolutely want us to lose/tie more than any other ambition they have. They play quite negative football sans Qatar. However, if we start off well enough and get early goals they tend to falter and collapse. The important thing for us is to start games strong and really push it to them once we have a lead. At their baseline, as long as the referee isn't an AFC hack, they are undisciplined foulers and offensively inept otherwise.

Even in the Iraq game, Iraq was one foul away from getting a red card if it wasnt for Shojaei's bone headed move.

[Nokhodi]

I think we overestimate the mental preparedness of Arab countries against us.

Arab teams play us with passion and its their goal to bring us down. They absolutely want us to lose/tie more than any other ambition they have. They play quite negative football sans Qatar. However, if we start off well enough and get early goals they tend to falter and collapse. The important thing for us is to start games strong and really push it to them once we have a lead. At their baseline, as long as the referee isn't an AFC hack, they are undisciplined foulers and offensively inept otherwise.

Even in the Iraq game, Iraq was one foul away from getting a red card if it wasnt for Shojaei's bone headed move.

Absolutely agree on quick goals. They come in with an underdog mentality and the longer they can avoid conceding the more confident they get.
If we score early, they're forced to open up and we can pounce on them.

[Kavian]

Home or away makes no difference! ..... want the rainbow you have to put up with the rain!

[Sepehr9]

Home or away makes no difference! ..... want the rainbow you have to put up with the rain!

There is a big difference between home and away. Statistics show us that teams win way more home games than away games.

TM has three home games and one away against Cambodia, so the odds are in our favour.

[diz]

Also, psychological advantages of home games aside, our players don’t have to deal with the BS travel headaches often imposed on them (visa issues, airport delays, hotel and training facility issues, etc).

[kaebi kabab]

Playing at home is always a headache itself - look at the state of the training pitch as just one example - less than 2 years after carlos thought so hard to get it up to standards they have let it go to ruins...

[diz]

^If that's the case, it's such a shame. Do you have pics/links to the training pitch's current conditions?