lousy Iranian defenders and the constant headache. What is the solution

[Farzadfarhangni]

I think you answered you own question here -

Skocic IN! He is the one to seed the future /s





On a non-sarcastic note, a good coach can make world-class defending performances out of whatever stock. See pooladi 2014, see the risk with Majid Hosseini in 2018...

See Kanani today or pretty much during the whole WC qualification. Credit Skocic!!!

BTW, perhaps most know the story already, but during the Morocco game, when Cheshmi got hurt, CQ asked Pejman Montazeri to go in. But Pejman had to go to bathroom first, and with little time left on the clock, CQ was forced to send in Hosseini instead. He played well and got the nod for the Spain game.

[Farzadfarhangni]

Milad is good defensively, actually he is excellent defensively - pace, tackling, heading...
he is just below schoolboy level going forward....

And I like what Shoja did defensively against Son last week on the right side.

[zereshk-ali]

Do we have any defenders that are capable of build up play currently? Which ones have the capacity?

Thinking of not just TM but IPL and foreign based players.

Weirdly at the start of qualifying it looked like Shoja was the cultured ball playing centre half and Kanaani was struggling to play it out from the back, but the roles have reversed

[zereshk-ali]

Milad is good defensively, actually he is excellent defensively - pace, tackling, heading...
he is just below schoolboy level going forward....

The problem is he is so low on confidence his poor touch and turnovers negate most of his natural defensive contribution and make him a liability at this end too

[Iran_19]

Defense may survive but my main concern is R and L back and CM.
We are horrible in these key positions. Specially CM.

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[026121]

I have to disagree, defense wasn’t the problem in 2014 or 2018 don’t think it’s a problem now either if we can fix RB and find the right CB combination. We can defend for the whole game but it’s worthless if we can’t creat chances and score. Our midfield is keeping this team from truly performing, in the last world cups under CQ we couldn’t score from open play. Right now Taremi and Amiri are the only two players who can link the midfield and attack. We need someone to give us more than Noorolahi in the midfield both on defense and offense, someone like Kante.

[O-ZoNe]

Do we have any defenders that are capable of build up play currently? Which ones have the capacity?

Thinking of not just TM but IPL and foreign based players.

Beitashour. I keep saying it but call this guy up. Defensively sound and reliable transition play!

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[bozghaleh]

Beitashour. I keep saying it but call this guy up. Defensively sound and reliable transition play!

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Anyone know why he fell out of favor? Seems like he should at least be in competition for R side.

[O-ZoNe]

Anyone know why he fell out of favor? Seems like he should at least be in competition for R side.

I thinknthe excuse is travel distance. Or maybe he isn't interested. Dunno why he doesn't get a call.

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[inarsenewetrust]

Defense may survive but my main concern is R and L back and CM.
We are horrible in these key positions. Specially CM.
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totally agree. The biggest issue is sko did not address it or look for other solutions. We said for so long nourollahi cannot trap a ball to save his life and has no game vision. Amiri, very tired and we keep running him into the ground (literally). Ezatolahi needs huge kick up the ass and I am not sure how he thought it was good idea to go to qatar... And then the constant playing of hajsafi, decent amount of minutes for somebody as useless as sarlak just topped it off.

Mehdipour, Yasin, Khodabandelou should be invested in much more in leadup to WC. We know level of aforementioned group, and honestly, besides peak shape Saeid/Amiri, the rest can get lost.

Our CBs area actually acceptable for international level. Sure not Van Dijk, but ok, especially if PAG is in form in lead up to WC. He is currently almost fully fit so has 8 months or so to get in peak playing shape. A transfer to PP should help with that.
Majid is playing regular mins for solid team in turkey this year and improving well, strong performances vs leagues best.

Kanani emerged as best player from this round, and Shoja showed that while he can have retarded moments he is still a very solid 1v1 defender and good in the air. Fallah behind them who is leader of u23 and peykan is ok emergency 5th option in case anything happens to these 4.

RB moharrami will probably be ok but needs work. Hardani is ok depth. Neither are super solid defensively but good enough in most departments and have good recovery speed.

LB is where we really have no options at all. Noorafkan, Hajsafi, Milad are all very weak.

[Iran_19]

I won't be surprised if PAG is fit enough. He start with Kanani as CB and Shoja as RB vs stronger sides in WC.
Sko clearly said we suck in R and L backs. And Iranian R& L back can not defend well.
CQ did that in past with Montazeri....

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[rdwrrr]

We all love for our team to have good all around players at all positions.
But you need to score to win games.

I don't like to play in our half with all of players just to say we have a good defense.

If we want to discuss philosophy, that is ok.

Saudi Arabia sent all the players to Spain, how did that work out?

[a_m]

want everyone to take a minute and reflect, instead Of us arguing about pot 3 or 4 , look at the facts the only team that was actually formidable in this group that you could say that coaching would be on display was the 2 games against S.Korea
, all the other opponents, Lebanon, Syria , Iraq and UAE please , we could have beat those Teams without a coach, …
For everyone who keeps bringing up that skocic saved us from what wilmonts created that isn’t true the facts is wilmonts was never paid so he never coached and we went into 2 games ( Iraq and Bahrain )without a single practice session, but that is another story…
To the main point Dragan failed in both his opportunities to prove and show he can handle big games he got it wrong both times against S.Korea , Paulo Bento out coached him ,
Ever single Team we will face in Qatar will all be stronger than S. Korea and have better coaches let that sink in
With this coaching staff and the way things are going we will have 3 loses , we won’t win a game , we really need to stop playing mind games and wake up, we need a coach who can and will make the right decisions not one who is too scared to upset the dalal’s or the Iff or whoever else he needs to please , QC was available, idk if he will want to coach us, but even Jardim/stramoconini are very good options ….:
At this time there are many players in the Team that do not deserve to be there , I won’t name them but it is very obvious like ex, omid noorfakhan do you really think he can handle better forwards…
defensively we are a lot weaker even though we didn’t concede that many goals we definitely gave up a lot of chances even against a weak opponent Lebanon they had some solid chances….
We need a new coach with the ability to pick the right players with out any interference..

[inarsenewetrust]

I won't be surprised if PAG is fit enough. He start with Kanani as CB and Shoja as RB vs stronger sides in WC.
Sko clearly said we suck in R and L backs. And Iranian R& L back can not defend well.
CQ did that in past with Montazeri....
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only issue with shoja on that side is that technically he is very limited for a RB in possession. Say what you want about moharrami but actually he is one of the best dribblers in tight space on the team, he can break strong press alone at times with quick penetration or combo with winger. Shoja cannot do any of that. Even vs SK he was causing many ball losses, but since he is pretty smart he will just lose it by touching ball out of play when he feels he cant get out. In the end as you say, it will be dependent on opposition to good extent.

Moharrami issue was essentially same that CQ faced with ramin, just look at his time in crappy oostende to see how bad he was defensively in a level where somebody like milad was quite solid. In fact, from that perspective sadegh has showed much more potential to develop into a solid international defender, see games as EL starter next season when dinamo had best defensive structure in europe. All of their issue is they cannot do BOTH sides. Sadegh looked way more solid defensively in dinamo (best rb in terms of % duels won in croatia) bc they limited his offensive duties. He mainly just stretches the field and rarely even attempts overlaps, juts lets the winger isolate the fullback alone. His main offensive job is being solid in possession and occasionally breaking press. Usually he has quite deep starting position when his team has the ball.

In TM he is asked to do both, provide good offensive option down that side (bc ARJ is becoming more of a box player anyways, pretty useless in wide areas), and be very switched on defensively. Ramin did this ok for TM bc CQ recognized his issues and found ways to cover it with a very functional midfield (we discussed how shit ours is), and playing the winger on top of him at times (when people say Iran played with 2 right backs at the world cup, there was a clear reason for it). As soon as this protective layer was removed (Japan) we got raped down his side.

When people discuss "offensive" or "defensive" game plan these are the realities. The players we have in midfield and defensive lines only become functional when they work as a very well oiled unit, and are at their peak physical condition, and have a very limited individual set of instructions. As soon as you try to get advanced there is break down.

When Skocic said iranian players are limited he is correct. Issue is, when you see players are limited you need to provide more clear instructions, punish crappy performers, test other options incl younger players whose ceiling has not yet been determined. Saying they are limited and then asking the same limited ones to do the same things doesnt really solve anything.

[Ghermez Agha]

Defense may survive but my main concern is R and L back and CM.
We are horrible in these key positions. Specially CM.

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I think the right back and left back situation is way worse than CM. We saw in this round of WCQs Amiri be super effective in CM and a few good games from Ezi too. Aside from noorafkan vs Iraq the first time there wasn’t a single good performance from a fullback. Very concerning going into the WC