Iran - South Korea game discussion

[Essi]

A pretty much solid performance by our team, considering that we played their A-Team away.

Good to see Nosrati in good shape again. He was solid. Unfortunately our left side suck. Hajsafi makes me crazy with his turnovers and all the wrong passes. Is is only me or have you guys noticed how many bad passes he has in every game?

[zzgloo]

I must say what impressed me was that South Korea actually had a rather defensice approach to their homegame, barely disturbing our build-up in our own half (at least until minute 75, when they increased the pressure). But we as the away team took much more risks, playing forechecking with often 4-5 players attacking them in their half already, leaving them space in our own half though.

Yet we prevailed 1-0 and barely allowed chances, that was really good.

If we somehow manage to reduce the number of stupid unforced error, we might have a pretty good team.

And I think it was oj to take Ansarifard out. He had to take the 100%er but was very sloppy there. A second goal would put such a game beyond doubt and we can't afford to waste chances like that.

A player who impressed me a lot today was Nosrati. What he made out of his rather limited skill, was great.

You wrote exactly what I had in Mind !!

1- Nosrati , Rahmati were great.
2- Ghotbi,appeared to have out coached his Korean Counterpart.
3-Nekonam,and park ji-Sung,were both nutralized by opposite side coaching plans.
4- Rezaie,Ando were very efficient.
5- Hajsafi, is not a TM material.
6-Ansarifard,our center forward,proved to be psycologicaly weak. ( hopefuly he has learned his lesson).
7-Central defense is TM's weakest point.
8-TM got too much disoriented in the last 20 minutes under pressure,it was time for counterattacks.
.................................................. ...........................................

A Great and timely win.




.

[Martin-Reza]

I must say what impressed me was that South Korea actually had a rather defensice approach to their homegame, barely disturbing our build-up in our own half (at least until minute 75, when they increased the pressure). But we as the away team took much more risks, playing forechecking with often 4-5 players attacking them in their half already, leaving them space in our own half though.

Yet we prevailed 1-0 and barely allowed chances, that was really good.

If we somehow manage to reduce the number of stupid unforced error, we might have a pretty good team.

And I think it was oj to take Ansarifard out. He had to take the 100%er but was very sloppy there. A second goal would put such a game beyond doubt and we can't afford to waste chances like that.

A player who impressed me a lot today was Nosrati. What he made out of his rather limited skill, was great.

[maij]

What I liked:

• Aggressive and tough tackling midfield players not giving the opportunity for the oppositions to breathe or to impose their rhythm.
• The fact that Team Melli can play a modern passing game , if they really wanted and had the desire to,
• Gholam Reza Rezaei
• The Win...and against th9ose arrogant Koreans..Bravo boys.

What I did not like

• I guess it is a waste of time to complain so often , but the defense is still shaky. We have to surrender to the fact that there will be no major improvement in this line anytime soon or before Asian Cup.
• Grass-rolling by Iranians !!!! I have never thought I will see the day ...but now we are in par with the Arabs on this....Really shame to see TM players grass-rolling in a friendly match
• I don't talk much about tactics , but what the hell Ghotbi was thinking in pulling Ansarifard out , while he was doing pretty good IMHO , is beyond my logical comprehension
• Distinct lack of creative midfielder in the mold of Navidkia or Jabbari and even Karimi.
  

Leaving all that aside , the beauty of that game was

Korea Republic 0-1 Iran

sooooo...sweet.......at last Ghotbi proved that he knows the Koreans like the back of his hand

[Doctor DOOM]

First half:


I assume what a kid takes out of this half is very different from what someone who actually observes the game.

It is a good thing we are facing the main team of south korea, which provides a very RARE opportunity to see TM play against a decent team. Therefore, TM is forced to show its true capabilities in attack and defense.

ATTACK:
And true to form, we see in attack we are quite weak as when we have the ball we are either over-passing the ball between the defenders and within our half 90% of the time, and if we try to move into the Korean half, it is always through the age-old useless LOBS from defenders, which usually don’t end up in our favor! Beyond this the team has proven incapable of penetrating the Korean half with proper passing! So much that in long periods of the game the Korean keeper was just a spectator from afar!!!!!

Our goal also is not the result of some highly masterful tactics, rather it is a true GIFT from the opponent for failing to pass stronger which fell to Pejman Nouri who had the presence of mind to attack the player. This only proved ghotbi is a very lucky coach … perhaps by becoming a “seyed” recently

DEFENSE:
On the other side, our defense has been penetrated again and again. Both through aerial balls and crosses (corners included), where most of the first balls are headed by the Koreans inside our 18, and on the ground, especially from our left flank, they have done whatever they wanted to do, passing, overtaking, dribbling, one-twos, …. Etc!!!

We may end the half 1-0 up. But team performance wise, we are way WAY behind the opponents and this kind of play just doesn’t inspire any sort of hope for us

But it’s not all negative. The positive thing I saw was that the Koreans after the goal lost some of their composure and focus. They didn’t have the same smooth passing or penetration anymore. Koreans still haven regained their focus and the game is more balanced now. Which begs the question: are they so vulnerable to shock? This could play in our favor.
Could it be that they got surprised by the goal or falling behind? Whatever it may be, this could be exploited.


Haven’t watched the second half yet and will address it once I watch it.
But I suspect it will be a bit more balanced game with more Koreans attacking but TM looking for counters … naturally. If only we don’t pull back too much, allowing too much space.
Lets see.

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Second half :

After watching the 2nd half, I must first say I am happy (sort of) that our defense didn’t buckle under that last 15-17 minutes of pressure by the Koreans. Yes, rahmati was called into action as well as a few more instances where their shots went wayward, but overall, we didn’t concede and that is good news.

But until this period, which is from minute 46-72/73, the game was a very scrappy football with lots of middle of the park sk!rmishes. nothing to write home about … except the two opportunities we got at minute 46 and the other shojaei shot. Both chances would have been more dangerous if they had taken a stronger strike at the ball.

Shojaei, very much like ghotbi, is a very lucky chap too. He had a very regular and quite forgettable game (like majority of his other TM games) except his goal. except this one instance, he was slow and in the second half, lost the ball on many occasions. Maybe if he wasn’t used on the left flank, he’d have been more efficient.
I really don’t know why ansarifard was brought out. It just doesn’t make sense as he wasn’t injured. Nor was he playing bad. So a very peculiar decision by ghotbi, who brought oladi who didn’t do half of what ansarifard did anyway!!!

Ando was very active, just like pejman. But again, having 3 defensive mids made the team very poor in creativity dept. . no wonder the team didn’t look very exciting going forward. The few chances we had were mere SPARKS rather than off rehearsed, coordinated moves.
Jalal hosseini did well on many occasions and actually prevented a goal in 1st half (don’t know how aware he was in that shot, though). So was nosrati on the right side. But we already knew this about nosrati that his best games are when he plays in the center or if not, then on the right side. His weakest performances were ALWAYS on the left side. So no surprises here.

TM still shows extremely poor in shooting and long rangers. And there seems no remedy for this basic foundation of football. What’s sad is that we have plenty of shooters like nekounam, nouri, … who CAN take shots, but don’t (due to some peculiar reason!)


Anyway, we got a win in south korea after so many years and lets hope we can build on this in asia cup, if we face the Koreans in quarters.