Dragan Skočić Appreciation Thread!

[Iran_19]

He did some good jobs including relatively stabilizing CD, and bringing back the peace to TM, but in order to fully evaluate his work, we have to play against some elite Asian teams, and some good Europeans. Our midfielder transition is still quite weak for top Asian side, and we again rely on fast wingers and world class forwards to win the matches. Another issue is Right and Left backs, not very impressed by current situation, there is not much stability and convincing players on both sides.

[sam20]

Except it wasn't the first time it happened. Let's not forget the critical match against Bosnia in the WC. With CQ it seemed his game plan was on repeat and when it mattered most his teams couldn't get it done...they either forgot to defend or failed to attack.

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Again your either ignoring or just don't know the facts and situation that led to the result. Just pointing to the scoreline. My point exactly.

Firstly, as another member mentioned, the 2014 squad was not nearly as good.

Second point - after barely losing 1-0 to Argentina in the previous match, Iran had to defeat Bosnia by multiple goals and hops for Nigeria loss by certain number of goals, in order to advance.

This caused cq to set tm up with a much more attack minded strategy than usual. His team was still a baby at that time. They just learned how to play proper defense during the qualifiers and didn't have enough experience to play like that against the best Bosnian side in several years... Best I've ever seen personally.

He had no other way to approach the game. We still got better results in world cup under him, clearly played better as a team, Barely losing to world class competition, and even experts and commentators were constantly praising the way we played and gained a new respect for us.

Yet some of the "experts" here can't see how well at played under him because they only notice attacks, fancy moves, and are looking more for entertainment for themselves and the way they prefer the team to play VS actual results.

Y'all can just sit down and watch how crap we were in 2006 world cup if you're satisfied with crappy results, as long as we play attacking fiotball.

[nisfejahan]

Skocic has a chance to carve his name into history.

There is a better than 50-50 that he can finish this round undefeated. That would make 17 games being undefeated.

There is a smaller, but still real, chance that he can finish this round with all wins. That would make 17 wins in a row. If he/TM can do that, he will become immortal. He will always be remembered. And will probably land a pretty good gig afterwards, making pretty good money.

IMHO, what he needs to do:

--Shore up the defense, particularly left/right backs. Also find an alternate duo for center for back up.

--Find a creative Attaching midfielder. For now, Saman is kind of playing that role. But TM needs a bona fide AM. The Sepahan guy Yasin is an option.

--Get Ezzi in shape. He is simply great, but really needs to shape up to anchor the midfield securely.

--Forwards/wingers are in good shape, with plenty of other options to current ones. But give Ghaedi a real chance against a packed defense (we will see at least 7 more games like that) and see what he can do.

--There will be hick ups here and there. One or more players not having their best day. He needs to be ready to make changes when that happens. It will happen.

If he does, he could really set the records on fire and become immortal. There will be a fire breathing Dragon statute erected in his honor at the entrance of Azadi.

Go TM. Go Dragon.

[naderb94]

If TM can make 2nd round of WC or win the Asian Cup, then Skocic will be the greatest Iranian manager of all-time.

[Taz]

Don't be silly, he's Croatian not Iranian. But yeah, he'd probably go above Kohan, Ghotbi, Mohajerani and Talebi if he was to achieve either of those.

[O-ZoNe]

Again your either ignoring or just don't know the facts and situation that led to the result. Just pointing to the scoreline. My point exactly.

Firstly, as another member mentioned, the 2014 squad was not nearly as good.

Second point - after barely losing 1-0 to Argentina in the previous match, Iran had to defeat Bosnia by multiple goals and hops for Nigeria loss by certain number of goals, in order to advance.

This caused cq to set tm up with a much more attack minded strategy than usual. His team was still a baby at that time. They just learned how to play proper defense during the qualifiers and didn't have enough experience to play like that against the best Bosnian side in several years... Best I've ever seen personally.

He had no other way to approach the game. We still got better results in world cup under him, clearly played better as a team, Barely losing to world class competition, and even experts and commentators were constantly praising the way we played and gained a new respect for us.

Yet some of the "experts" here can't see how well at played under him because they only notice attacks, fancy moves, and are looking more for entertainment for themselves and the way they prefer the team to play VS actual results.

Y'all can just sit down and watch how crap we were in 2006 world cup if you're satisfied with crappy results, as long as we play attacking fiotball.

Your subjective facts are opinions not facts. In both WC Iran set some of the lowest possession percentages ever...thus between 4 years span the gsme plan remained unchanged and our team didn't improve. Calling his 2014 team a baby and attack minded is ridiculous. We had players with LA Liga experience, EPL, Dutch experience and so forth. We also played single striker in Gucci so that was far from attack minded. Here is my opinion....CQs TM strategy was play not to lose regardless of opponent or curcumstance. Your facts are opinions. Now here is some actual facts we can all google...2014 CQ results were poorer than Talebis in 98. In 2018 we had a win based on an own goal...so one might argue CQs team improved between wc by a single own goal...facts.

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[khabalood]

Well CQ picked the team. Ok so Bosnia he had the wrong team...Japan? I guess his players needed to go to schoolyard ball to remember play to the whistle, don't handball, and remember to defend? For every excuse there is another prime example. Blind CQ lovers must think Columbia has no soccer pedigree because they fired him before his 8 years passed!

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You can't blame Carlos for the team throwing the game and losing on purpose. How else can one describe one team stopping and allowing the other to score? It's obvious to me.

[khabalood]

Even if Skocic gets us out of the group stage during the WC, his critics are going to question him. "discernible strategy" is the latest popular corporate lingo that's getting used a lot.
You know what makes Skocic a good coach? Fact that he realized his starting line up needs to be modified instead of trying to force the same line up over and over. In addition, the fact that he is able to deal with having previous TM players be part of his coaching staff and not drive them out of the camp.

Corporate lingo? You lost me.

I was just using english words to explain that from what I have seen of this team in the last few games they have no strategy on offense and the players appear to do whatever they want. The team sets up defensively then tries a counter where anything apparently goes. When presented with a situation where they are given time one the ball with possession and no chance at a counter they look lost. We even had a good period of time in the last game where the team was ali asghari style lobbing the ball up the field (because they were unsure of where to go) and hoping for the best. Now either Skocic is a genius and he has figured out how train the team to play an exceptionally fluid style of consistently changing offensive strategy (that people who know how to read the game can't pin down) or there is no actual strategy.

It's extremely unlikely that Skocic is a genius and most likely more of the same Croatian garbage we saw when Branko was running things back in the day. Only Skocic has more balls and the talent level of the players is higher right now, so the lobs are better and we even get Taremi scoring off one.

Now I have nothing personal against the man, and wish him every success. I'll even give him credit defensively because he was able to maintain what Carlos built and not screw things up like Wilmots. I just think he is a fraud when it comes to offense and has been riding our offensive talent more than anything. I hope the stronger teams don't make us pay for it.

[rdwrrr]

If we go with the argument that Skocic was handed the best team melli ever because of the hard work of CQ, then how come CQ lost 3-0 to Japan with the same team!!!! My point is that a soccer ball is ghel gheli, and bounces in funny ways and every coach will have unexpected results.

We can pick and choose results here and there to fit our argument and try to "win" the argument, but the other side can do the same. Wasted enegy.

Baba jan, CQ was a great coach. Period. Skocic is a very decent coach as well. CQ will never come back to Iran. Skocic is our coach and is doing a good job. Please enjoy TM's run!!!!

Not knocking, Skocic, but this is not the same team as the one facing Japan, The last 2 years was good for our team. Taremi, Sardar, Jahanbaksh, Ghoddos, Gholizadeh all gained a lot of experience playing against top teams.

I don't think our team was as good last year.

[O-ZoNe]

Not knocking, Skocic, but this is not the same team as the one facing Japan, The last 2 years was good for our team. Taremi, Sardar, Jahanbaksh, Ghoddos, Gholizadeh all gained a lot of experience playing against top teams.

I don't think our team was as good last year.

Team under CQ was stronger. I would take a Dejagah in Fulham, Android the defensive specialist, Nekounam and Shojaie with LA Liga experience...CQ just never had faith in playing guys like Taremi or Azmoun over the likes of Ansarifard who admittedly was in better form than he is now.

Corporate lingo? You lost me.

I was just using english words to explain that from what I have seen of this team in the last few games they have no strategy on offense and the players appear to do whatever they want

Very true. Seems like all Skocic forwards do is score goals. [emoji848]

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[Taz]

Now CQ had a better team

[sam20]

Your subjective facts are opinions not facts. In both WC Iran set some of the lowest possession percentages ever...thus between 4 years span the gsme plan remained unchanged and our team didn't improve. Calling his 2014 team a baby and attack minded is ridiculous. We had players with LA Liga experience, EPL, Dutch experience and so forth. We also played single striker in Gucci so that was far from attack minded. Here is my opinion....CQs TM strategy was play not to lose regardless of opponent or curcumstance. Your facts are opinions. Now here is some actual facts we can all google...2014 CQ results were poorer than Talebis in 98. In 2018 we had a win based on an own goal...so one might argue CQs team improved between wc by a single own goal...facts.

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Lollll again you're ignoring the obvious circumstance and ignoring so many massive details.

Where did I say Carlos team was "attack minded in world cup 2014"? Can you point this out??

I said that we had to come out of the USUAL DEFENSIVE SETUP and played attacking VS BOSNIA because we needed a win by multiple goals.... Only in that match specifically.... I never said we were attack minded during the whole tournament.

Lolll "talebi had better results"??? Are you seriously going to sit there and tell yourself his results were better because his team beat the mighty USA of 1998 that was a terrible team? They were the equivalent of getting Tunisia in the group stage of world cup 2018. In fact, USA was the worst team at the 98 world cup....yet you ignore this stuff.

Second world cup for Carlos queiroz have him a group with euro Champs Portugal, Spain, and best team in Africa, Morocco... Yet he got 4 points, tied Portugal, and ended up one point below Portugal and Spain on the group.

Not sure how you can't see that his results were much more impressive than talebi lollllllll and much improved over the two world cups he coached, when considering one of the most important factors that you seem to ignore..... THE LEVEL OF COMPETITION HE FACED.

[O-ZoNe]

Lollll again you're ignoring the obvious circumstance and ignoring so many massive details.

Where did I say Carlos team was "attack minded in world cup 2014"? Can you point this out??

I said that we had to come out of the USUAL DEFENSIVE SETUP and played attacking VS BOSNIA because we needed a win by multiple goals.... Only in that match specifically.... I never said we were attack minded during the whole tournament.

Lolll "talebi had better results"??? Are you seriously going to sit there and tell yourself his results were better because his team beat the mighty USA of 1998 that was a terrible team? They were the equivalent of getting Tunisia in the group stage of world cup 2018. In fact, USA was the worst team at the 98 world cup....yet you ignore this stuff.

Second world cup for Carlos queiroz have him a group with euro Champs Portugal, Spain, and best team in Africa, Morocco... Yet he got 4 points, tied Portugal, and ended up one point below Portugal and Spain on the group.

Not sure how you can't see that his results were much more impressive than talebi lollllllll and much improved over the two world cups he coached, when considering one of the most important factors that you seem to ignore..... THE LEVEL OF COMPETITION HE FACED.

FYI, Yugoslavia 98 and Germany 98 were very very strong teams. Far stronger than Portugal or Spain 2018 and on par with Argentina 2014. USA 98 was much better than any of the African teams we faced with CQ. Pundits gave us no chance against any team in 98 and yet we did well...certainly better than 20-30% possession rate.

Your focus on semantics and this and that is grasping at straws. Yes objectively 3pts Talebi got were better than the 1pt CQ got in 2014. In 2018 CQ improved on this record by a single own goal...objectively speaking.

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[sam20]

FYI, Yugoslavia 98 and Germany 98 were very very strong teams. Far stronger than Portugal or Spain 2018 and on par with Argentina 2014. USA 98 was much better than any of the African teams we faced with CQ. Pundits gave us no chance against any team in 98 and yet we did well...certainly better than 20-30% possession rate.

Your focus on semantics and this and that is grasping at straws. Yes objectively 3pts Talebi got were better than the 1pt CQ got in 2014. In 2018 CQ improved on this record by a single own goal...objectively speaking.

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Lollll 98 USA team was better than any African team we've faced?? Give me a break. Yes Yugoslavia and German were really strong and we did well against Yugoslavia.

The 98 team was certainly better than 06.

Again.... By saying we only improved by a single own goal is another example of you purposely ignoring details, just because you obviously aren't a fav of cq.

Much tougher group in 2018, tied Portugal (stronger team than the Nigeria we tired four years ago)

Sure we beat Morocco by an own goal....

This is what happens when your team is organized and disciplined in defending and also able to keep up physically and stamina wise with the best teams.... When you're good enough to keep up, you sometimes get luck on your side.

A team with talebi or Branko(especially) would have already been scored on by Morocco at least 1-2 times before 90 min was up... That's what you're choosing to ignore.... Or just not seeing.

So we actually got more points in an even tougher group in 2018.very easy for someone to see the clear improvement, unless you're just anti cq because you don't enjoy watching defensive tactics on television. Which is clearly the case with you.

Again, you're mentioning your clear hatred of his tactics when you say "better than 20-30% possession". You just don't like his style of play, and therefore you're downplaying his great achievements. Simple.

You can hate the style, but it doesn't change the fact that cq team played much better and clearly achieved better results vs tough opposition.

Even commentators for the first time EVER were talking about how good Iran was playing, organized and how impressive they are. They were clearly praising the way we played TACTICALLY, FOR THE FIRST TIME, which comes down to Carlos Queiroz. You definitely have to agree that you don't know as much as they do about football tactics.

[O-ZoNe]

Again.... By saying we only improved by a single own goal is another example of you purposely ignoring details, just because you obviously aren't a fav of cq.


Again, you're mentioning your clear hatred of his tactics when you say "better than 20-30% possession". You just don't like his style of play, and therefore you're downplaying his great achievements. Simple.

You can hate the style, but it doesn't change the fact that cq team played much better and clearly achieved better results vs tough opposition.

You clearly still have no clue what is objective data and what is subjective. I never once said I hated his tactics. I just cited the data.

Let me give you a crash course. Tehran is the official capital of Iran...objective fact

Tehran is the greatest city in the world...subjective opinion

Football is played professionally to achieve results. I am commenting on the numbers you are commenting on style. I comment on possession you comment on how hard our opponents were. Are you not concerned that we could not score more than 1 goal in any WC match with CQ regardless of opponent or circumstance. That to me suggests a problem exists with game plan and tactics.

2 WC back to back. 6 matches. 3 goals. 1 was an own goal. This is objective data and its not very good. Maybe you are right, CQ planned to win on defense first...but even then you need more than 3 goals in 2 WC. Maybe he had no striking options...I disagree. Maybe TM players lack goal scoring IQ? Disagree...point is, I'm not here debating Maybe, agar, and shayads....I'm here debating the results.

You might argue CQ made us more professional...how? We still have financial issues, player transfer issues, media bs...did CQ get VAR installed? Perhaps the 3-0 loss to Japan set us straight...all agar and shayads. Wake up and look at the facts.

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