Esteghlal Fan Thread...

[yashar_fasihnia]

one thing i wanna say however is that guys, akbari is a ggood midfielder, but its gonna be extremely hard for him to play as DM against stronger opponents with a stronger attacking force.

that worries me a bit.

another thing that worries me is talebloo who seems to be mediocre again for sometime now. its been long since we saw some amazing saves or reflexes from him and saving our team from some real danger like how vaezi or rahmati have been doing.


a 3rd thing, which is not proven yet and i hope it never does but i think manei and esteghlal have to be careful if they play to use manei as their "pistone chaap". he is too offensive and a stronger team can punish us from that side.

[shayan20]

u should watch the whole game or atleast the highlights if u can, there were some other great chances we didnt use (as usual ) specially jabbari in the end of the game whose weak shot was cleared away by their defense after beating the GK in a 1 on 1 with homami.

Now I feel a lot better as I know We're going to have 3 very strong teams for champions league.
who knows SS might make it 3 in Asia.

[Amin_]

and lastly, wat was ghalenoi thinking not having taghipour on the bench!!
we didnt have a single defender on the reserves bench! wat if either of our 3 defenders would get injured??
our bench consisted of alizadeh, namdari, amirabadi, pouladi, khaziravi, amirabadi and beygzadeh!!
thank god it all ended well!!

Yeah I wondered about that too. I think in case of inury of one of the 3 defenders, Qn would change to a 4 men defensive line, with Heydari and Manei on right and left respactively.

But yeah it was a risky decision not to have Taghipour on the bench.

[IranJavidan]

taghipour is injured guys, that's why he wasnt there..

im sure we would've managed in this game though, moghavemat had nothing to say in terms of attacks.

and mashalla be shakouri, he's a great defender...

[Amin_]

Ah ok so Taghipour was injured. Thank God nothing happened and all ended well then

[yashar_fasihnia]

ahan, thanx for the info hassan.
although i dont think fajr could create much trouble for us, im worried about future games, cos right now, we have 1 injured defender, 1 suspended defender and 1 suspended DM.
which means we only have 3 defenders(montazeri, ghorbani and shakouri) and 1 no real DM (akbari) for the future games as well until atleast 1 of those 3 players is able to play again
maybe this break cos of TM can help atleast taghipour heal faster but if worse come to worse, im guessing like amin said, we might play a 4 back with ghorbani and shakouri as the 2 CBs (which itself needs a lot of coordination ) and play montazeri as DM for emergency situations

i hope shakouri solidifies his position in the team cos i definitely prefer him over taghipour.

as i remember, atleast in the earlier weeks, ghalenoi used to prefer taghipour to shakouri and shakouri used to be 5th choice defender behind our 3 starters koushki, montazeri, ghorbani and taghipour who was usually on the bench. i hope it isnt the case anymore cos im not really a fan of taghipour.

[yashar_fasihnia]

Now I feel a lot better as I know We're going to have 3 very strong teams for champions league.
who knows SS might make it 3 in Asia.

inshalla
although i must say, this team has weak points which can be exploited well by a good coach who can read our game well and has the right tools to make necessary changes against us, and considering our strikers arent the best finishers themselves, on a bad day, we could disappoint...unfortunately

[The-Red]

Good win for ss...5 goals can't be luck or anything , well deserved..
I however think SS should be worried about their second half of the season schedule and collect as many points as they can now that they are playing in Azadi...on the last 1/4 of the season, SS has some crucial away matches that can determine how ss finishes the season.

[yashar_fasihnia]

thanx armin jan. as u rightly pointed out, our games arent evenly balanced and as u can see, we started the league with away games, now we are playing some homes and then it goes a few away games again.

[OsaBlue]

great game by our boys again, i was really missing games like this which we hadn't seen since GN lefted esteghlal 3 years ago

[yashar_fasihnia]

guys TV3 just announced the TM squad (excluding the PP players who they will announce tommorow after the game).

esteghlal had 4 players: talebloo, ghorbani, montazeri and jabbari.

no heydari, no shakouri and no borhani though and maybe if shakouri had played 1 or 2 games earlier, he could earn a spot as well but still, good enough, specially for montazeri and ghorbani!!

i personally think although ghorbani has been our leader and has scored some goals for us, defensively, shakouri has been more solid which is wat TM needs. nevertheless, dame bacheha garm!!



for those interested, mahdavikia is also invited, and hashemian too but hashemian is injured and didnt make it.

also from UAE league, only khatibi was invited. no nosrati, and no sadeghi from saipa

[IranJavidan]

k this includes a brief analysis up to the 57th minute:

formation:

------------Taleblou------------
-----------Montazeri------------
Shakouri--------------Ghorbani
------------Akbari--------------
Heydari-------------------Manei
-----------Jabbari----------------
----------------------Juanario-----
-------Akbarour------------------
-----------------Borhani----------

-the 1st and most important point in esteghlal's game today was the apparent tactical plan implemented in our play. did anyone else notice the off-ball movements and runs by our players whenever we were transiting to offense? i counted numerous times the combos, squares, and triangles that were formed by the midfield, and if this excellent trend continues in the team, i have no doubt that there will not be any team in iran that can tactically beat us. im saying not out of blind support for my team, but based on previous experience. im sure all of iran remembers esteghlal's style of play 3 years ago when gn made us champs... game by game, esteghlal only improved, and by the end of the season, no team was a match for us, and all analysers from both colors were admitting that esteghlal's class was far above iranian standards. im not saying we've reached that stage yet, as yashar pointed out our weaknesses so far. i will only add to his list that esteghlal still has major problems in the defense department. its one thing to make a mistake like the turnover that montazeri caused in the fisrt half, but time and time again, we've seen how esteghlal defender's got dribbled. also, there is a major problem in terms of man-marking, and to a lesser extent coordination. all of this can cost us dearly in future games agasinst teams that can actually use the most out of their opportunities.
- moghavemat displayed a terrible game today, and that was unexpected from shagholam. benching motevaselzadeh was probably the biggest favor he could've done for us, as their few attacks were extremely weak and flawed.
-having said that, i have to point out the excellent job esteghlal's strikers and midfield did today. borhani and akbarpour were pressurizing the moghavemat defense non-stop, which took away their attack-building, and creativity. this lead to them simply kicking the ball high to get rid of the pressure. that's when our midfield would step in, and by quickly and effectively passing the ball around, we took the matter into our own hands. i especially would like to stress that juanario has tunred into a key player for that matter, and his vision and distribution are key to this style of play. not to mention his shots, tackles, and decent speed. a joy to watch. he was all over the place, and im sure we're to see more of him in the games to come.
- jabbari, as always, displayed an acceptable game, although he could be much better than what we saw today. i love his passes though! they're like put on a platter for any striker that can use them, and most of the times, all a striker needs to do is a simple baghale pa and the ball will be in the back of the net from his passes!
- akbari was solid, also was key in controlling the pace and distribution... i could call him a mini-nekounam of our team; IF HE PROVES TO BE CONSISTENT.
-heydari, WOW! what else can one say? fast, gifted, technical, and a team player. such a pleasure watching this kid, and I want to see him in TM RIGHT NOW!!
- manei was also superb today. he did everything a side winger has to do.. shoot, centre accurately, etc. he was also very motivated u could tell, so i found him particularly eager to attack, especially in defense-2-offense transitions.
-our attack line also impressed a lot.. akbarpour finally broke the deadlock, and if his 2 goals aren't selected in the top 10 goals of this season, i will be surprised. BEAUTIFUL ZIDANE DRIBBLE . if akbarpour plays every game like he played today, then i wouldnt mind him starting with borhani at all. heck, obviously i love majidi as a striker, but as long as abbasfard and alizade aren't playing, im happy. borhani, as always, created chances, but buried them with him. nothing new there.
-now back to defense... ok.. ghorbani was very good. solid, and as always, hungry to score! montazeri was shaky, and that might cost him a starting spot next game..not to worry though, since shakouri has been very good in the past 2 games, and koushki will be back. but this game we showed weak on simple attacks, and although taleblou was at fault for the first goal, we could've done much better overall.. GN NEEDS TO IMPROVE THE DEFENSE IF WE WANT THE TITLE!!!

- finally, i want to give full credits to amir ghalenoei... He's using an old system, but displaying modern football. he encourages defenders from a 3back system to participate in the attacks not only in set pieces obviously, but during gameplay! he's never afraid to admit his mistakes in terms of tactics and player selection, and is first to make effective changes. I truly hope his tremendous work pays off in the end, especially since he was not treated fair by the iranian football family first in eses, and then in TM. im sure he's very motivated to display his capabalities, and also knowing his character, prove his critics all wrong. GO GN!!!

sorry for the long post lol.

[yashar_fasihnia]

thanx for the passion and the details hassan!
damet garm!

i just wanna know, r u sure koushki will be back next game??

[Kaveh]

congrats to all blues
eyval bacheha

[Kasra.]

Batcheha motchakereeem