Iran vs Syria - Post game discussions and player ratings

[taremiscores]

[Ghermez Agha]

Guys I have watched that replay on taremi’s card a few times and I have to say he actually did the right thing.

he was covering for cheshmi who very stupidly made a risky forward pass and ran into the box leaving his space behind him wide open and Taremi stayed back to protect us in the counter. If he wasn’t there and he was not able to make that tackle the Syrian forward would have been 1v1 with Beiro and we know how bad Beiro is with his exits in 1v1 situations as seen in this game as well.

as the game was happening live I kind of understood it too but now having watched the replay it’s crystal clear to me that Mehdi had no choice and had to sacrifice himself to give us a shot and I’m very grateful he did

[Iranianarsenal11]

My ratings:

Beiranvand: 5.5 Thought he had a poor match. Wasn't really tested but had some poor exits and a terrible tackle and penalty. He at least saved the pen in the shootout which was huge.

Shoja: 7.5 He's been our best CB in this asia cup. His fitness is the biggest question mark for me, as well as his ability to avoid getting yellow carded

Cheshmi: 5 This guy is a huge liability. Sure, he wins aerials, but he's just too slow and makes dumb decisions all the time... Thank god Kanaani will be back

Ramin: 5.5 Thought he had a poor match. He's just not at the level of Sadegh. He lacks pace and is always out of position. Taremi's red card is partly his fault...

Hajsafi: 8 MOTM He played excellent and very well composed. He was honestly all over the pitch. He even had an instance where he was right next to the keeper to tap in one of azmouns shots but the Syrian keeper did a great job to hold it.

Ezatolahi: 7 He's our best midfielder and is a must start against Japan alongside Ghoddos

Ghoddos: 6.5 Played okay today... Nothing bad nothing too great either

ARJ: 7 Overall he played a lot better than the last 3 matches... Starting to pick up some form maybe? He defends well too.. He should've had 1-2 assists had our players finished

Ghayedi: 7 I'm surprised by how energetic and active he is. He had the best eye for goal from long range from any of our players today. He's pacy as well... My only complaint is that he sometimes loses the ball when attempting dribble moves but he does so at a rate much less than ARJ or Mohebbi..

Taremi: 6.5 Scored a nice pen and drew it as well. He held the ball up nicely too.. Besides that, he didn't play at the level of an Inter Milan striker. I do blame a lot of that on Azmoun's poor match though...

Azmoun: 4.5 Lost the ball way too much against a sloppy Syria. Had so many chances to finish but messed up. Just a poor game... Let's hope he has a big comeback game against Japan.

SUBS

Gholi: 7 He's such a breath of fresh air off the bench. Could've scored but it was well saved by the Syrian keeper. He deserves to start honestly...

Ebrahimi: 6.5 Very slow, but otherwise calm and composed. Like a poor mans Busquets... He's just far too slow for international football right now sadly.

Karim: 6.5 Same as Ebrahimi... Calm and composed but just too slow and old

Mohebbi: 3 Horrible. Just horrible...

Torabi: N/A Great penalty and is so underrated... Needs to start against Japan.. Idk why GN is playing games with basij boy. START HIM!

[Pluto2000]

Man of the match for me was Omid Ebrahimi...those 40 minutes in extra time he was cool and composed, he had clean passes, and he could distribute really well. He was doing god's work defensively and I felt like he was the only one who could actually keep the ball for more than a second in the face of Syrian pressure. Damesh garm what a legend

[diz]

Karim postmatch interview (English)

[AmirSalar]

Can anyone answer me why our players always try to make that last pass instead of shooting when we counter attack? It is getting too damn predictable.

Shoot the ball ffs.

Who on our team can shoot?

[KasraKhan]

Man of the match for me was Omid Ebrahimi...those 40 minutes in extra time he was cool and composed, he had clean passes, and he could distribute really well. He was doing god's work defensively and I felt like he was the only one who could actually keep the ball for more than a second in the face of Syrian pressure. Damesh garm what a legend

He will always be a legend for his 2018 WC performance. And the fact that he's still contributing to TM at the age of 36 merely adds to his legend status.

[babak_iran]

Positives:
- we were able to stay composed after getting a red and finally won a penalty shootout. All our PK takers took great penalties.

- Hajsafi was terrific. Ghaedi has probably been our best player this Asian cup. He has creativity on offense. Jahanbakhsh played well. Omid Ebrahimi always plays solid.

Negatives:

- We played bad and were lucky to have advanced

- Ghoddos needs to be more involved.

- Mohebbi shouldn’t get another single minute for the rest of the tournament. Just awful

- Taremi and Azmoun were our 2nd and 3rd worse player after Mohebbi

Lineup for Japan match :

Rezaian Kanaani Shoja Hajsafi
Ezatolahi Ebrahimi
Jahanbaksh Ghoddos Gholizadeh
Azmoun

sub in Ghaedi and Torabi for JB and Gholizadeh or start Ghaedi and bring jahanbaksh/gholizadeh second half.

[Abtin]

Highlights:

Post match interviews from players:

https://video.varzesh3.com/video/323424/%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%D9%87%D9%85%DB%8C%D8%B4%D9%87-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%85-%D9%85%D9%84%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D9%85%DA%A9-%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA

https://video.varzesh3.com/video/323426/%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%85%DB%8C-%D9%BE%D8%B3-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AC%D9%85-%D8%AF%D8%B9%D8%A7-%D9%85%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%85-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D9%BE%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%AF

https://video.varzesh3.com/video/323420/%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%B1%D8%B6%D8%A7%DB%8C%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C-%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D8%B3%D8%AE%D8%AA-%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%85

https://video.varzesh3.com/video/323421/%D8%B3%D8%B9%DB%8C%D8%AF-%D8%B9%D8%B2%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87%DB%8C-%DA%AF%D9%84-%D9%86%D8%B2%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%85-%D9%88-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C-%D9%BE%DB%8C%DA%86%DB%8C%D8%AF%D9%87-%D8%B4%D8%AF

[Mr.Click]

Our top goal producer is producing wasted chances instead .. that would be Azmoun,.. and as long as he's on this streak the entire team also looks bad. Think about it, had he scored on 30% of the good chances he had in the past 4 games all these ratings given here would've been 2 or 3 points higher per player..
Azmoun needs to step up, otherwise he would be our weakest link for this tournament when look back and talk about for years to come

[Pluto2000]

Our top goal producer is producing wasted chances instead .. that would be Azmoun,.. and as long as he's on this streak the entire team also looks bad. Think about it, had he scored on 30% of the good chances he had in the past 4 games all these ratings given here would've been 2 or 3 points higher per player..
Azmoun needs to step up, otherwise he would be our weakest link for this tournament when look back and talk about for years to come

unfortunately he hasn't really stepped up for TM in a very long time, don't even remember the last time he made an impact in an important match and not a random world cup qualifier

[Bi-honar]

Looks guys, there's no shortage of negatives to talk about... we can blame it on GN, the players, the ref, the grass being too wet, etc.

But let's face it, we had exactly the same kind of total fucking meltdown we've had in other Asian Cups - regardless of the coach.

The only difference this time was that the meltdown started not only when we were winning but completely dominating the match - that was a first!

Not sure what causes/caused that meltdown... there's obviously something wrong with our collective mentality - get frustrated to easily perhaps?

But there was also one very positive thing I saw: The boys really pulled themselves together after GN talked to them before extra time.

And because of that TM did something it had never ever done before, that is,

TM won an Asian Cup match by scoring 5 penalties in a row for the first time ever!

We had lost every single penalty shootout in the Asian Cup that went to 5 penalties!

In fact, as far as I know, the only other time we scored our first 5 penalties was in the 2000 LG Cup against Egypt which we ultimately lost!

That's definitely something positive (perhaps the only one) to take away from this match for a very tough matchup against Japan with so many players missing.

[Pishi_Rules]

Karim postmatch interview (English)

Karim has an excellent vocabulary, wow I’m very impressed. I think him being there was good, clearly he brings some intelligence and leadership to the team. Having the older guys for the penalty kicks really helped I think, it wasn’t their first rodeo !

[PSGman#19]

The pk thing is thanks to our players in Europe and our experiences in wc/acl.
Syria didn't have this.

We saw the same between korea and saudi

[Artaxerxes]

Karim postmatch interview (English)

I can see Karim in HC position in the future