IRAN vs JAPAN post match thread and player ratings

[Ostad_Goosfand]

Fan and player interviews before/after the Iran-Japan match. Shout out to the Japanese fan who has visited iran twice and spoke PERSIAN!

LOL loser Iraqis supporting Japan and the Syrian girls with Japan. Why do we send these buffoons our people’s money again?

[caligula]

Shows that having players in Europe doesn’t guarantee you anything in the Asian cup. Heck Itakura is a Bundasliga regular and he was arguably the worst player on the pitch . Success in your Europe doesn’t necessarily translate to success at international level - you need a good system and good team chemistry. As good a career as Japan’s back line had they didn’t gel well together . Kubo as good as he’s been this season club wise didn’t look that great in the match

You could turn this argument around if you look at all the Iranian players playing in Europe.

[diz]

Fan and player interviews before/after the Iran-Japan match. Shout out to the Japanese fan who has visited iran twice and spoke PERSIAN!

[diz]

indeed ...! oddly i thought their keeper performed quiet admirably against us... he was certainly amongst their top 2-3 players.. and had near zero chance on saving the goals he conceded ..!!

He may have had a good game against us, but he got scored on in every match Japan had this tournament. He is the definition of "zourakh".

[BacheLot]

One place Japan is severely in need is GK. They haven't had a solid GK (like a Beiro) for the past 4-5 years. They are using a guy who has very little international experience, and his backups are even less experienced. One thing I learned since the Mirzapour days: doesn't matter how good your 10 are, if you're GK is shaky, all bets are off.

indeed ...! oddly i thought their keeper performed quiet admirably against us... he was certainly amongst their top 2-3 players.. and had near zero chance on saving the goals he conceded ..!!

[diz]

I hadn't seen this before: Taremi's reaction before and after ARJ's PK. Love it!

[diz]

for all the wealth of talent and top level footballing experience nealy at every position, i thought Japan severely underperformed in the this tourney and even more alarming was their team spirit and confidence or should i say lack there of..!!
i can't say im an avid follower of their football to know the nuances hence judge the quality of their coach more fairly, yet im still somewhat dumbfonded how he was'nt shittcanned immediately after our game..??

One place Japan is severely in need is GK. They haven't had a solid GK (like a Beiro) for the past 4-5 years. They are using a guy who has very little international experience, and his backups are even less experienced. One thing I learned since the Mirzapour days: doesn't matter how good your 10 are, if you're GK is shaky, all bets are off.

[BacheLot]

for all the wealth of talent and top level footballing experience nealy at every position, i thought Japan severely underperformed in the this tourney and even more alarming was their team spirit and confidence or should i say lack there of..!!
i can't say im an avid follower of their football to know the nuances hence judge the quality of their coach more fairly, yet im still somewhat dumbfonded how he was'nt shittcanned immediately after our game..??

[Super Shojaei]

My oh my

Shows that having players in Europe doesn’t guarantee you anything in the Asian cup. Heck Itakura is a Bundasliga regular and he was arguably the worst player on the pitch . Success in your Europe doesn’t necessarily translate to success at international level - you need a good system and good team chemistry. As good a career as Japan’s back line had they didn’t gel well together . Kubo as good as he’s been this season club wise didn’t look that great in the match

[BacheLot]

So a day has passed and the emotions aren't as intense.

I rewatched the 2nd half and although a great performance, I don't think it was "the best football we've seen Iran play" or "Japan was completely dominated" as some claim. We were better than Japan in the 2nd half for sure, but it wasn't a complete one sided domination.

There were multiple good opportunities for Japan to go ahead 2-0. Both early in the 2nd half.

Also the boys were at times sloppy and turned the ball away way too easily. I think both Omid and Saeed at times thought they more time with the ball than they actually had.


Again, just before someone jumps on me for being negative, We were the better team in the last 30 minutes of the match when it counted the most and I'm not taking anything away from the boy, just trying to have a sober analysis of the game.

like nokhodi say considering the quality of the opposition in a game of such caliber allowing only 2 half chances is indeed still very commendable defensive achievement ..!!
the one where a last ditch shoja tackle stopped a very dangerous counter was definitely more than a half chance..! 😧
by comparison we had 7-8? serious attempts at scoring on the other end and one one ultimately stuck, plus the pk i guess where we got a bit lucky the jap defender didnt see kannani and took out his legs in process of clearing the ball ... before than their keeper had a good beat and positioning to save the shot still had kanani wasnt fouled and was forced to try to beat the keeper for the winner..!!

anyways if we wanna get critical .... i thought that Jap kachal Left Winger was having his way for most part with Ramin and he caused all sorts of scary danger ... but i guess that's because Ramin was way too involved and positively active in our attacking forrays for a RWB...!
also i still find it disconcerting how we didnt sub anyone out late in 2nd half ... i know he went on that last run with the ball to kill the clock but b4 that Omid looked totally spent/ineffective and dire need of sub..!
also we totally had japan shoke on the ropes and badly needed to put the dagger in in regulation time ( perhaps with 1-2 of late attacking winger subs gholi ? torabi ?.)
but i guess even GN seemed surprised by our domination and japan looking defeated already hence hesitant to make any changes ?? yet lets face it had we not gotten lucky with that PK in injury time ... the chances were greater for Japan to take advantage of the break in action b4 OT to get their composure and confidence back and fight us back much more valiantly till the end..!!

also if we knit pickin then how bout those dodgy ass Subs by GN after we scored the PK ..? taking off Saman/Azmoun i forgot who else ..!! i was like WTF 😬 what if we woulda conceded the equalizer in the little time left and had to go to OT w/o our key players..!!?? 😱

[daggerhashimoto]

My oh my

[mehdi13]

An amazing half of football from Serdar. Khaste nabashe. Also nice to see guys like JB/Mohebi be the heroes after so much criticism. Nime 2vom dahaneshuno service kardim! Makes me wonder about when members would say CQ defensive style was holding us back…

[perspolis#1]

physicality is not the issue. Speed and combination play is. In the US game in particular CQ did not set up the team properly to fight that.

against Qatar we have to go back to our possession style. Long balls won’t work as well against them. They might actually want that.

Yes I was referring to the speed aspect for those teams.

Japan does not have the physically strongest players but even 5'2 players like Kubo will press endlessly.

This is a product of European training.

We tend to do far better against teams like Argentina/Spain/Wales who do not have that level of pace to their game compared to teams that come at us pressing like England/Nigeria/USA

For all of CQs faults one decision I dont fault him on is parking against Nigeria. We would have been slaughtered on speed otherwise

[Nokhodi]

Fair analysis and this is something thats been a theme for as long as I've watched modern football with TM going against it.

Whenever we play a decent SubSaharan African team, European team, or just physical team like USA our players struggle with the speed of play and press.

I dont know if this is purely because our players assume globally the pace of play is like it is in Qatar/Iran or what

The Japanese players kept running at our players in their blindside and dispossessing them.

physicality is not the issue. Speed and combination play is. In the US game in particular CQ did not set up the team properly to fight that.

against Qatar we have to go back to our possession style. Long balls won’t work as well against them. They might actually want that.

[The]

I think to expect Japan to not cause some sort of problems would be very naive. TM minimized Japan’s chances, and more importantly we figured out the key to attack them at will.
that’s what made the fans so happy. That the tactics in general were right.

Of course.

Just personally think there have been other performances just as good in recent memory.

2nd half Vs Wales being one example