Iran vs. UAE Game [merged]

[yashar_fasihnia]

U are right, playign wise he might not help. But team needs a leader. A guy that players in the field look up to, when the game get's tough. Mental stuff. Who was the leader today (Nikki)?

nekounam was captain. players that were looked upto must have probably been nekounam, nikbakht, ando and kaabi.

[yashar_fasihnia]

doctor, thanx for the reply.

we got other experienced players like madanchi, kazemian, mobali, samereh, majidi, rajabzadeh even khatibi.
none of these players got invited. maybe all of them shouldnt have but i think madanchi would have done much better than hajsafi. hajsafi seemed lost and i approve daeis decision to sub hajsafi. it was a bold move. unfortunately, he didnt have much options on the bench though which is another story (he created his own bench ofcourse).

daei could have made a mistake of starting hajsafi, but i give him credit for realizing it early and making an early sub. it takes courage and alertness to witness and make such a change.

i also think kazemian who was on top form in UAE would have done better thang rezaei who didnt play bad but could have been better.

doctor peyman, some of our experienced players are not faring but there is no guarantee hungry players would do any better. afterall, hunger isnt the only factor which helps a player succeed either.
perfect example was hajsafi. this shining star has been rocking IPL and even in friendlies, but when it came to such a crucial game against a well coached tactically disciplined team, he was lost.

experience matters as well. we have to make certain sacrifices. in my opinion a not top on form but experienced nekounam will do better than a totally hungry maziar zare or hossein kazemi or any other DM who hasnt got much play time in TM.

its like a balance, and my personal opinion, WHEN AND IF AT ALL, an experienced player and a hungry player are at an equal level, my preference would go to the experienced one.

in my opinion, in this situation and many previous sitautions under different coaches and teams, the not on top form bnut experienced players and the young but inexperienced players were more or less on the same level. thats why i think there is no guarantee and maybe there might be more damage done if we play with players who are not experienced but only hungry and motivated.

mind u, when we say nekounam is not on top form, it doesnt mean he is on poor form either. it means he is recovering and can have acceptable performance.

so, i wouldnt call it "playing just names" like u keep saying. i would look at it as "experience vs hunger". its just a matter of subjective judgement by every individual how much each factor is important and wat other factorss besides experience and motivation play a role i making a decision because when u say, the player is experienced its not just a simple TM caps. its much more than that.
it means more understanding of his team mates, ability to work under different coaches (from club to national coach) and different set of players and different formations and positions and tactics, ability to work ur way through the game if u havent been doing well or if u were being shutdown by the opponent, the ability to not lose ur cool when things are not going ur or ur team mates way, etc.
see, all these factors are more likely to be higher in an experienced player than a hungry and motivated youngster!


about enayati, in my eyes, he and khalili still are the same. none of them have really been fed properly to make a judgement about.

and wat u might call lajbazi, i would say sticking to ones own ideas and beliefs. for example, i told u my preference, experience over hunger and motivation in a 50-50 situation. now, if im the coach, im not gonna change this opinion of mine after 1 or 2 games, neither would u if u were the coach specially when there are so many different factors that influence the performance and result of a game!

if branko believes in nosrati and navidkia, ghalenoi believes in khatibi and enayati, daei believes in sadeghi and zare, u cant expect them to chage their views on football after a few games simply because a persons understanding of different factors of football is interrelated. ultimately, decisions are made based on a series of opinions and perspectives which are cultivated in any person over years of learning and experience. some changes people accept, some they dont! it doesnt mean that their views are wrong and that if they had done otherwise, there is a guarantee results would be better if not worse!

for example, we cant expect for next TM game, daei come and change his formation to rahmati-kaabi,hosseini,aghili,beygzadeh-maziar zare, kianosh rahmati-hajsafi,jabbari,rezaei-meydavoudi !

thats simply insane! the names i mentioned are probably among the most hungry and motivated players in iran at the moment who can play for TM. but is this enough?? wat guarantee is tehre this team will perform better than the experienced team? this team can get destroyed in half an hour.


----------

let me explain how i look at players, coaches, etc.
i look at them as a complete package. for example, i give points for experience, for motivation, for recent form, for skills, for physique, for intelligence and understanding of football, and other factors.

now someone like gholamreza rezaei might get a 10/10 in motivation but if he gets a 3/10 in experience that would make it less to someone like kazemian who gets a 8/10 for motivation but also a 6/10 for experience!
like this, i allocate points to all players and the factors which i can think of involve football. so if i can continue, kazemian gets a 7/10 for skills but rezei gets a 5/10, kazemian gets a 6/10 in physique but rezaei a 5/10. so when u sum up all that, the only thing rezaei might be better than kazemian in is hunger and motivation. now based on this, who would u go for, kazemian or rezaei?? i definitely would go for kazemian! mind u, this is just an example.
critical positions where we dont have no real dominant player always we face more criticims because of more subjectivity. for example, the case of sattar zare v.s. morteza asadi v.s. mohammad nosrati v.s. fereydoon zando for LB position.
now they each have their own positives to offer to TM for LB position but they also have their draw backs! so, we each allocate our own points, look at the players as a package and then decide who is the best fit for that game against that opponent!

all these points are ofcourse subjective to the opponent we are going to play and the immediate circumstances of the game itself!

ofcourse, all this is done subconciously in my mind without myself realizing it. im sure its pretty much how everyone looks at it. i think its just a matter of how much points, each of us allocate to each factor of a footballer. i might allocate 6/10 to karimi for motivation, u might allocate 4/10 and ultimately make different decisions. or u might think motivation should carry more weightage than experience, hence a 5/10 in motivation is higher than a 5/10 in experience but my views might be different.

ultimately, we come up with different decisions. im definitely sure, branko, ghalenoi, daei and all future coaches want the best for TM and their own staff and team, so thei decisions are made on their judgements and frankly, judgements are subjective. afterall, football is subjective, not objective!

so i dont see any of these as "playing names" or "lajbazi" or "stupidity" or "spineless", its just a different perspective of allocating points to players.

[Ali Chicago]

he's apparently injured.
but he said he'd be available for next week's game or the one after that.

mind you, not that kia's presence would make such a vast difference.
I believe rezaei is doing surprisingly well there.
and if daei wants to use a PROPER defender on the right back, he could bring kaabi up as well.

so kia's absence isnt our major problem.
our problem stems from elsewhere


===========

TWO teams advance.

U are right, playign wise he might not help. But team needs a leader. A guy that players in the field look up to, when the game get's tough. Mental stuff. Who was the leader today (Nikki)?

[Doctor DOOM]

he's apparently injured.
but he said he'd be available for next week's game or the one after that.

mind you, not that kia's presence would make such a vast difference.
I believe rezaei is doing surprisingly well there.
and if daei wants to use a PROPER defender on the right back, he could bring kaabi up as well.

so kia's absence isnt our major problem.
our problem stems from elsewhere


===========

TWO teams advance.

[Ali Chicago]

Why Kia isn't invited?

[Ali Chicago]

Just finished watching the game posted my two cents in the other thread (what is next). But in summary, disasterous outcome for Iran.

Maybe I am emotional but UAE was the better team, our team was never able to penterate once and i mean once into the penatly box of UAE. On the contrary wheneer UAE decided to penterate they went through our defense like Ab Khodran.

Either UAE has becoem really really good, or our team really sucked.

No plan of attack. Midfield was nothing but individual moves of Shojai and when he got tired or UAE coach realized that and marked him closer, Iran's team was done in the second half.

For the love of god, our home game we need a win we play with 4 defenders? And 2 defensive mids (Nekoo and Andoo). For the love of god, Mr. Daie what are you thinking?

Nekoonam was really poor. Despite what Martin said, I think Rezai and his speed was much much more dangerous to UAE team than Ando and Nekoonam togehter combined.

Ando was really weak too. Why on Earth we play with both Ando and Neko????

Dai'e subs was terible. I am really disappointed at Mr. Afzali as well. He is a very knowledgable person and this????
Khalili for Enyati and keeping Rezai in the field and then play crosses to the box? What the hell was our coaching staff thinking? I am not saying that was the best strategy but even if you want to play long balls and crossees send Khalili keep Enayati and send Nikki as a third (false forward) to add to them for the long crosses.

No play maker in the center mid. Nikki for Haj safi another bad sub. Why on Earth he starts a 18 yeard old kid who has a bright future but definitly not proven.

In my 40 somthing life I never ever remember Iran's team being so Zaleel against an Asian team in Tehran. Our standing in our group tells it all .

People have roo dar vaysi with Daie. UAE is the same team that our team melli under GN beat them twice last year 2-1 and 1-0 (in UAE) and see how they outplayed us in Tehran.

I was one of the first people here during the Asian game talked about how Hosseini due to his lack of speed stays back and keep the team back and creats a hole in between the midfielders who are pushign forward and our defense line.

Never mind who cares? What the heck I should expect from an IFF that select its coach like that and run my country's football to the ground like this. Shame on Kafashiyan, Shame on Ali Abadi and shame on all of us for witnessing such a poor state of our football. I have never seen Arab teams pass better defend better, attach better and do a much better transition in both defense and offense in our home field. They got ties against Iran before in Tehran but we dominated them and they just got lucky and grass rolled. This UAE team outplayed us. For the most part expect the last 5 minutes they even didn't do the grass role.

We are in danger of not making it to the WC. Two teams will be promoted from this round or only one?

[Doctor DOOM]

yashar jan, in theory, you are right on too fast a transition from experienced to youth is not good for a team.

but in OUR TM, it doesnt apply.
look at the "experienced" lot and how they have been faring:
ando? pathetic.
neku? not good.
enayati? not good.
zareh? not good.
niki? not good.
kaabi? nowhere near his own form.
VH? I dont even want to see this idiot in TM. not that he was of much use lately anyway.
kia? getting old and losing pace.

in fact KARIMI has been the ONLY experienced veteran who has actually raised his game in recent times.
the ONLY one !!!


who have been doing comparatively better ?
the NEW faces; hajsafi, rezaei, meydavoodi, ...

(I'd add khalili but since he is a victim of the moronic formation, I'd hold back for now until we see him in a 4-4-2 for a couple of games.)

I think it's obvious HUNGER & MOTIVATION is more reliable in Iran's reality, than experience which has taken a jaded, complacent nature to itself !
sadly, we see NAMES being preferred to form and performance ..... once again !!


it's branko-days at TM, all over again !!!
and the very same problems and laj-baazis and controversies and weaknesses and stupidities and ... etc!!!!

the very same :
- NAME-oriented rosters
- illogical insistence and favoritism on certain players, despite bad displays
- a black list of players, no matter how madly we may need them
- moronic insistence on a formation that has never worked for us
- stifling of strikers and denying the team of more positive stance
- lack of a playmaker in the team
- lack of shooting in the team
- throwing away set pieces, especially the direct kicks like they're untouchable
- infuriating stubbornness on using 2 def-mids , no matter how poorly they play or get in each other's way

it's so similar it's not even funny anymore !
this could easily be a post from FEB 2006 !
easily !

the ONLY difference is I wouldnt add "lack of teamwork" in this list, coz daei hasnt had much time with the TM ( been busy with his saipa !!!!!!!! ) while that moron had nearly 5 yrs!

[yashar_fasihnia]

great points here, agree with most of them.

something that hasnt been addressed yet or probably a lil mention by martin was our very slow defense line! aghilli and hosseini are both slow, specially hosseini!! i watched the syria kuwait game and the strikers from both those teams (and UAE) were all fast and sharp players!
in 2 scenes yesterday, the UAE strikers outran our CBs (once aghilli and once hosseini) but we were lucky we didnt concede!

i think hosseini is wayy tooo slow for asian standards! we havent got many fast CBs in iran, nosrati and motnazeri are the only 2 i can think of. maybe we should take a gamble and play nosrati instead of hosseini.

----------

also 1 more point, TM is reaching a transition stage meaning we are beginning to introduce new players to TM and let go off our european legionnaires who are approaching a high age.

the only suggestion i have is i think this transitiion is being done too fast. in the sense, too many young inexperienced players for too manyexperienced players. i think we should take the transition more slowly and that can be done by letting 1 or 2 more more experienced players play and then slowly replace them as well.

yesterday, if we exclude nekounam,kaabi and nikbakht and to an extent teymourian and zare (who themselves dont have much caps), we see the rest of the players hardly have more than 10 caps each!
rahmati, hosseini, aghilli,hajsafi,rezaei,shojaei, enayati - these 7 starters together combined dont have more caps than nikbakht,nekounam or kaabi alone!

at such a crucial stage, having so much of inexperience and incoordination in the field in my opinion is not good given the fact time is not our on side either! playes like nosrati, zandi could be of more use in my opinion and the absence of the likes of madanchi and kazemian was clear!
not to mention, we didnt have any attacking midfidler on the bench! jabbari and zandi werent even on the 18 mans list, karimi is injured, navidkia and mobali werent invited! so wat would we do if shojaei was injured or something?? play ebrahim sadeghi??

[Nokhodi]

It was same old, same old to me.
We have players who are weak physically. They keep slim enough to wear the newest jeans, but can't gain a few pounds of muscle to knock some of their opponents on their ass when they both run after the same ball.
Also the transition from defense to offense was either really slow or did not happen at all.
And honestly there was no hunger in my opinion. They players have to attack the net not just stand around it hoping for the net to move around and hug the ball.

[RaginG Inferno]

It's funny when I look back on the drawing of the groups. I told myself we have an easy route to the next stage.

Ali Daei's organization of the team has been holding the team back. Let's be honest: We need a new coach.

Ghalenoi was quite superior to Daei.