World Cup 2022 Qualifier: Iran - Lebanon (Info, Updates & Live Reports)

[Hosseini]

Good 2-0 W but still a lot to be desired. Lioke Nokhodi said this team is out of shape physically

Defensively we looked very weak in some areas. Need to shore that up if we don't want to get absolutely embarrassed

Offensively I've just come to terms with we will have to rely much on the individual skill of our stars to get to the second round if it's to happen

[Karimi 8]

Well, now he knows what to change/who to call up/not call up.

God bless your positivity

Have you seen this coach learn anything so far as TM coach? This is the same man that walked around smiling while losing to Korea playing with 2 attackers for over 70 minutes.

[Taz]

Mehdipour looks promising, if we keep praying for Nouro to have a nicely timed injury which forces him out of the WC, we may yet still have hopes of something resembling a midfield.

[Philosophy_King]

We will go nowhere with Sko in charge. We qualified beating Teams like out of form Iraq and Syria, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Lebanon, UAE, Bahrain. No KSA, Australia, Qatar, Japan. When we faced the only real challenge against Korea we got dominated and exposed.

[Philosophy_King]

Mehdipour looks promising, if we keep praying for Nouro to have a nicely timed injury which forces him out of the WC, we may yet still have hopes of something resembling a midfield.

Is such a pity that we TM-fans have always "hope" for some obviously underperforming players to face an injury to get rid of them. First it was Masoud, now it is Haysafi and Nourollahi.

[04041374]

Highlight of the game: For the first time since the pandemic, a game in Iran has been played in front of a packed stadium.

Hopefully, IR's authorities stop being stubborn and let fans (+ women) enter the stadiums. With the current number of cases and vaccinated people, COVID can't be used as an excuse anymore.

[Futbaldoost]

Well, I don't remember any match of TM that I was so dismayed after a win. We looked much better even in the 2-2 tie with Syria in Tehran in the last match of 2018 WC qualifiers. We seldom could connect three clean passes in this match. With this kind of performance, it will be three losses and out in the WC. Yes, we do have fitness issues but the primary responsibility stand with the HC and his crew.

IFF has become such a bastion of incompetence that I have started to miss Azizi Khadem. They didn't even have the gumption to get women in the stadium let alone any courage or competence to prepare for the biggest stage of world football. Most of the IFF BoD travelled to Mashahd to get photo ops. Why in the world did they do that instead of doing their job? Were they really needed there? What was their function? Estili thinks by doing busy work and looking active he could hide his inability to plan and execute as the TM admin manager.

This was not a bounce back from a loss. It was an embarrassing performance facing the Lebanese B team and their A team is ranked 95th in the world. The wheels are coming off.

Go TM!

[O-ZoNe]

Good 2-0 W but still a lot to be desired. Lioke Nokhodi said this team is out of shape physically

Defensively we looked very weak in some areas. Need to shore that up if we don't want to get absolutely embarrassed

Offensively I've just come to terms with we will have to rely much on the individual skill of our stars to get to the second round if it's to happen

In form PAG and Beitashour call up and our defense would look so different! Unfortunately neither are likely to happen but one can dream. Now the hard work begins!

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[taha]

I am very concerned. We need to improve 5 fold by November if we are to have any chance. As risky as this sounds with the WC being less than 8 months, I would get rid of Skocic and the coaching staff and get someone is who has a tactical and technical head on him.

Skocic looks like he's won a raffle prize at a school fundraiser to be TM manager for a day, unfortunately it has ended up being longer.

[Bladsville]

I guess we can all hope for a UAE-SK tie now.


Seems unlikely.

[inarsenewetrust]

only watched second half. Cant tell much from such a game but Mehdipour looks better bet than nourollahi. OFC yasin could change dimension, god forbid skocic give that much trust to a talented young player.

Sarlak is really bad on the ball. I didnt see him pass > 5meters once, and the passes were all crappy and slow.

Azmoun, as Leverkusen coach said, is lacking his usual explosiveness. Combo of the injury + covid + other illness. With more game time he will slowly build out of it. Not worried about him, good he scored again after a while.

Kanani + Majid are a solid pairing moving forward, and with PAG, Shoja, and imo Fallah all other options. I talked shit about Kanani pre camp but credit to him. As much as he is a pure dalghak his bikhial nature actually helps his performance, really doesnt give a shit what anybody says about him. we are solid enough at CB. Issues come at fullback slots. Noorafkan has this one pass into space down the line that is his speciality and is crap at everything else. Sadegh is prone to do weird things, even if his overall play is solid enough technically, physically. Its really bizarre how hardani got dropped for this camp.

Also ARJs touch is horrible...no wonder the guy is getting benched at feyenoord. Second goal would never have been scored on a professional team + gK, let alone one in the WC.

As such games are essentially irrelevant in terms of directly preparing for the WC, I feel like we should be using them to test out some elements we would be able to transfer to WC games. Setpieces are a big option, and how we scored both of our goals at the last WC. We have a big, tall team that can put pressure on opposition through set pieces as we did throughout CQ reign. We do jack shit with our set pieces now and they seem to only be getting worse, something Skocic should seriously consider addressing.

[Superparsi]

Good news is we have time to work on the rest. We really need IFF and Skocic/coaches to maximize the limited available Fifa days.

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Bro we dont even have a president.. lol... I am not holding my breath on this one. We will go and play 3 games and come home with maybe a 1 point. Even if we were to replace Scocic with somewhat a better coach, we dont have enough time to enforce new tactics, especially since we "never" had a good preparation campaign besides 2006 campaign which I believe was our best Team Melli ever. I just dont think these players really look up to Skocic as leader.

[teammelli91]

Congrats on the win guys!

This team needs work though, and we hope IFF/Skocic and his staff are aware of it. 3-4 players need not to be called up anymore. Just because they have 10+ caps and experience in both CQ/Skocic camp shouldn’t be reason not to make changes.

No mafia bazi please. We don’t want to force players from PP and SS into Team Melli.

Team Melli is the team of the people and we WANT COMPETENT players who will do their jobs correctly in DEFENSE and CENTRAL MIDFIELD.

We need a better fitness coach and we need to set up friendly matches. The World Cup isn’t in summer 2023, it’s in November 2022.

Now that we’ve qualified they need to start making plans so the people’s team can perform at their best in Qatar.

Dear IFF, Skocic, Team Melli staff..

We have not seen a team like this in a long time. If you know where there are flaws PLEASE DON’T Mafia Bazi players into the national team. It’ll be a waste of a generation. Now is the time. 2022. We may not even see 2026.

[PSGman#19]

Unpopular opinion : didn't find the game that bad, appreciate we hold the ball and had long passing moment and some nice movement.
I find it better that the slow crap I see from PSG.
Of course, we lacks some chance creation and our team looks out of form. But impossible to predict our WC with games like that 8 months before.

Another positive is mashhad stadium who was better than the damn vuvuzela azadi.

Good we saw Hosseinzadeh (promising), mehdipour, esmaeilfar (should have come earlier).

Nour and sarlak are bad. I hate Torabi but is so so (some nice and awful moment).
Noorafkan like always looks ago against small opposition.

We need badly some good friendlies

[Nokhodi]

I am very concerned. We need to improve 5 fold by November if we are to have any chance. As risky as this sounds with the WC being less than 8 months, I would get rid of Skocic and the coaching staff and get someone is who has a tactical and technical head on him.

Skocic looks like he's won a raffle prize at a school fundraiser to be TM manager for a day, unfortunately it has ended up being longer.

How will that fix that we have players who can't get minutes in their clubs, are injury prone, or can't run 30 minutes.