Iran’s Journey to Russia… the End-of-Summer Blues

PFDC – Team Melli takes on the Blue Tigers on September 8^th, at Bangalore’s underwhelming 24,000 seater Sree Kanteerava Stadium, in its last match of the summer and on its continuing journey to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Although Team Melli fans are feeling a little blue themselves after Iran’s disappointing opener against Turkmenistan, the match against India has all the makings of a memorable victory the fans will be bragging about for years to come.

There are few other Asian pairings of cultural giants with so much commonality in history, language, and philosophy.  Both countries even use a great cat as the nickname for their national football teams – suggesting that common ancestry between the two nations runs deeper than most realize.

But on the football pitch, the two ancient cousins took divergent if not opposing paths starting in the early to mid-sixties.  While Iran rose to be the undisputed king of Asia in the decade that followed, India slowly faded into the shadows despite two gold medals at the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games and a silver medal at the 1964 Asian Cup.

It was more than 55 years ago when the Indians last walked off the field victorious against the Iranians.   With Team Melli having registered 6 wins and a draw since then – including a 3-0 victory the last time the two nations faced off in 1991 – and outscoring its opponent 17 to 3, the odds are obviously stacked in favour of Iran for a convincing victory.

What promises to make this match a memorable one however, is not just statistics…  The Blue Tigers are completely down and out – physically defeated and psychologically deflated.  Their situation is so bad that after a recent chat with Coach Constantine, John Duerden suggested their dreams of Russia are over and they should instead focus on plotting their long term rise!

That conclusion was in stark contrast to Coach Constantine’s over optimism before the start of the campaign, when he told India.com they were aiming to win all their home matches.  Not surprisingly, neither Stephen Constantine nor Sunil Chhetri, India’s leading goal scorer, found the courage to respond to our multiple requests for interviews about their home match against Iran.

There is also a potentially important historical aspect to this clash and the likely reason the All India Football Federation (AIFF) picked the farthest venue from Delhi to host the match:  The last time the Iranians marched on Delhi, commanded by a masterful tactician with so much fire power at his disposal, they registered one of the greatest battle victories in the history of mankind!

The Battle of Karnal – which coincidentally lasted a little longer than a football match – may have taken place nearly three centuries ago and outside a football pitch, but its lessons still reverberate and it exposes the same tactical weakness the Blue Tigers have suffered from in their 2018 qualifiers:  the inability to adjust to the changing tempo of an attack followed by a decisive central strike.

On that note, even though Team Melli fans may be tempted to see the speed and superiority of Vahid Amiri and Alireza Jahanbakhsh on the flanks and Sardar Azmoun’s aerial abilities upfront, Queiroz’s marching orders to his men, may well be a more calculated holding game in the center with an emphasis on quick changes to the tempo of their attacks.

This would be a major and welcome change from the Turkmenistan match which featured constant high tempo attacks from the flanks that proved mostly unsuccessful.  It also calls for some patience from the fans during the match, as Team Melli adjusts to these new tactics with potentially slower build-up plays.

The only question that remains to be answered after this match, is not whether Team Melli and its fans will have overcome their end-of-summer blues with a victory, but exactly how blue will the Tigers be, after their worst ever defeat to Iran!