POST-MATCH DISCUSSION | vs. UAE - Asian Cup 2015

[jahandoost]

I love this TM because we are and play as a TEAM. After Gucci scored, the way that the whole team celebrated and at the end of the match the sincere hug that Sardar gave Gucci shows this. Great stuff.

TM misses Khalatbari, he is the type of player that eats up Arab teams and would have been very useful.

2 players that stood out negaitively for me:

- Heydari, he is not the same and hasn't been for very very long time. Physically weak, slow and doesn't have that edge. Unfortunately I don't see him in TM anymore.

- Vahid Amiri, has potential but too many mistakes and a champion side can lose out on these mistakes. His lack of experience highlights his at times poor decision making, slow starts etc.

But the reality is that and I think many people are noticing is that CQ has introduced a different style of playing football. We should embrace it and fine tune that style, so that it become unique to us.

[Camran khan]

As much as it was an awful game by us, we still had 12 goal chances, 4 on goal, while UAE had 10, none of them on goal.

[_Navid_]

4 years in the job including leading us to one of our most proudest moments in World Cup football, developing the best Iran side in our living memory, 100% record without conceding a single goal at the tournament and yet we still have muppets like this:

When will you people learn to keep quiet when you keep being shown up for having no clue?

Don't get over excited. This poor game doesn't deserve credit.

[mayhem]

I quite liked, Soroush Rafaei. He had a good turn and pace on him with close control. Has he played for iran before?

[Karimi 8]

My take on the game:
- I have to first admit, I was very distracted first half so mind my comments may be a bit off *

- This game:
-FIRSTLY congrats to Iran for qualifying top of the group, no goals conceded, this group was not easy like we all predicted but we beat every single team (they can take their preparations with them on their flights home ) lol but seriously, hats off to UAE, they have some great passes and their #10 is a great player they came to win when a tie would have been good enough for him. Now enough with the loser team
- Stats: I think our possession was 32% vs UAE 68% and passes were like 150 for us, 500 for UAE... Shots were 14 for us, 4 on target, 10 for UAE ZERO on target! This shows that teams truly cannot get passed our defense, with or without possession. We also had 3 yellows.
- The game was very entertaining in the first half it was really open, but it kind of died down in the second half. UAE came for the win, they could not break through our defense. We won thanks to TWO of our saviours, Reza with the goal and Ando's magical passes with the assist. Ando is a ninja, he is honestly secretly or directly involved with almost all our goals, lol (he seemed very tense in the post match interview he is very serious what a player)

- The players:
- Haghighi : Seemed to perform decently and was alert
- Heydari: I hope this was the last chance CQ gives him. His specality is suppoused to be his crosses ? He sucks at crossing, and he did seem slow today.
- Hosseini : Solid
- Pouraliganji : Really noticed him more this game htan other games. Great game by him, and this guy is so powerful at getting open for crosses, expect goals to come from him his headers are the best I have seen for some time
- Pouladi: He was weak in the first half, had a great second half defensively. However, he is very shaky with his ball control, and he had too many poor bezan ziresh passes
- Rafiei: he was decent, he got back on defense, had some good passes and dribbles but didnt command the center of the midfield by any strech
- Amiri: He was good in the first half, he is very fast, but he was invisible in the second, and had some poor decisions. He is very similar to hajsafi how he plays, but not to his quality at all. He hustles but he just doesnt do much.
- Nekounam: Play his position great today, had some great tackles (and some dangerous ones)
- Ando: what a player, great assist, hustle, he really is our MVP in my opinion for TM
- Azmoun: Played well for the time that he was on
- Jahanbakhsh: Disappointing performance by him, he looked like he saw a ghost when he saw his number. although one thing should be considered, Heydari was no support to him he had to control the whole right side of the field. Hoping for better games from him

- Subs:
- Reza was great since he came on, he had some awesome moments off the ball too. You really have to see them again how he pushed hte player off was great on several occasions. Damesh garm for his hunger! His celebration after the great goal, and after the match ended was amazing to see. Thank you reza for hte goal welcome back to the scoring sheet
- Dejagah : came on guns blazing. What a difference him on the right had! Nice dribbles to show Omar he is there to take over
- Ghafouri: Our defense improved a lot more when he came on, heydari is not a defender this guy is! Well done!

Conclusion:
- Scrappy game, however we came out with a win. This was not our starting line up and unfortantely many of the youngsters dissappinted but thats okay, CQ took a chance and players gave it their all. Our defense cannot be scored on, it was a bit shakier than usual however with 0 shots on target this goes to show you how hard it is to get passed us. However our offense is definately struggling, look how UAE passed the ball compared to us! We couldnt get more than 3 passes together, and we just resorted to "bezan ziresh" aghili style play! I didnt see much fluidity, or even any really strong counter attacks. Our game plan clearly is dont get scored on, score later and its clear. Congrats on the win guys!

[Ardalan]

Don't think CQ was playing for a win. That was such determination by Gucci. Without him you would not have scored there. He was in the right place at the right time

Rooye zarbeye istgaahi Emarat zaif bodand, az avval baazi besyaar ashkaar bood, kheili nazdik bood 0-0 beshe amma ini ke pas az yek corner ma gol zadim va yargiriye Emarat dar an sahne bad bood tasadofi nabood va Gucci az in noghte zaf estefadeye 100 % kard. IRAN 1, Ruuspiye Amrika 0.

[ehsan singapore]

luck is when skill meets opportunity

i agree teams need luck,you remmber manu won the champion league by scoring twice in 90th min,you need luck in football

[KeonKish]

This game was very hard to analyze. For the first 15 minutes we were dominant and were attacking well. we completely killed Omar for 20 minutes or so. All of a sudden a succession of 10 or so soft fouls were given to UAE, which shifted the game toward them, and they gained confidence and moved forward, they dominated the second part of the first half, however they did not create much danger, despite their great passing. Second half we saw some very poor bezan ziresh from minute 50-around minute 80. from 45 to 50 and 80 to 95 the game was essentially ours. For all their passes however the UAE did not make many nice chances. Mabkhout was never on target, khalil was not on target, and the only real danger to our goal was perhaps a penalty if given because of Omars brilliant footwork.

I will say we didnt have confidence with Rafei and heydari, heydari was a big problem. the aussie commentators noticed how omar was playing far back to avoid teymourian and nekounam. He is a great player, UAE defense was also pretty tidy. however their strikers did not scare or impress me at all. their passes were majority passes between defenders and midfield, just to hold the ball. We created many more chances and inexperience by players like amiri killed our momentum, the kid runs a lot but his timing is piss poor, this is a game which made me appreciate shojaei more.
In the end our subs were great and they did the job.

My player by player breakdown.

Hosseini-->made one mistake, pretty solid, needs to hoof the ball less.
PAG--> Great game, he has great aerial ability, their defenders double marked him on corners.
Pouladi--> had some good defensive moments but could do better going forward. Needs to hoof the ball less.
Heydari--> pretty slow and weak, committed a lot of fouls, ghafouri by far a better player.
Ghafouri---> kept the ball low and showed his quality.
Teymourian---> everywhere, did good work to stop Omar, also was doing a lot of pressing. His hustle also head to our goal.
Nekounam--> was solid, however a few times he made silly fouls.
Jahanbahksh---> as much as I love him, he isnt showing much, and I dont know why.???
Azmoun----> worked hard and won a lot of headers, but we didnt give him good service, just a bunch of crap long balls.
Amiri--> has a great work rate, great speed, blasted by emiratis a lot, but lacks confidence to shoot and also holds the ball too long
Rafei--> got some good fouls, but didnt create anything an attacking mid should, IMO shojaei has been better.
Gucci---> what can I say, he might be emam reza himself, what a workrate and press, and what a great header.
Dejagah---> great work and was basically our engine from 80 min +++

Overall our defense and defensive mids have been solid(minus heydari).
proved by the fact that haghighi was barely tested.
our inexperienced attackers were good in some moments and invisible in others.

The main problem we need to fix is how we stopped playing the ball on the ground. We showed many times in this game that we CAN hold the ball and can make it to the enemy box with a low number of passes, like 5-7 passes, we just need to play with more confidence and utilize our space more. We saved ourself a huge headache and dealt with omar well, he was far back most of the game and was just making crosses. also, japan will eat them alive as they played their full force team against us, and when you put that into perspective we did well considering amiri rafei and heydari played. Respect to UAE for playing a clean game.

[scotian]

Don't know if posted before, but: 4 shots on target to UAE's 4, 12 to 10 on total shots, 10 corners to their 4.

[HuSsAiN]

Haven't watched the game yet, will watch FULL game later.. the win and another cleanshet, couldn't be more so happier.

top of the group

[ehsan singapore]

Don't get over excited. This poor game doesn't deserve credit.

can you define poor game?we had 12 shot,4 on target and uae had 10 with 0 on taget,how they play better?you think they play better because they had more possesion,if we had our first team we would have scored more

[Iman_Joon]

POST-MATCH DISCUSSION | vs. UAE - Asian Cup 2015

Hell yeah arabs!! We will defend persian gulf just like Haghigi defend our goal

[babak_iran]

Iran's tactics:
Park the Bus
Rely on counters and set peices

[reachsean]

I woke up and saw the lives score web site It was in 88 minutes. I said to myself, it is about time for Iran to score
And they did. So i did not miss anything
Oaky,now I am going to go bak to sleep,

Good night

[Rumez]

My theory is since our clubs in the domestic league cans string together 5 passes and our pool of players are far inferior to the past generations, CQ has decided to play without possession, since we can't manage 5 passes and give up the ball so easily!

Even when we scored and needed to keep the ball we just couldn't.
Let's face it, PGL doesn't provide high intensity pressing and physical game for our players to be ready for international games.

We tried open games till we were on the verge of elimination in WC 2014 qualifications.
It was then, when he introduces the best defending team we've ever seen.

Actually I remember being outplayed by Uzbeks in Tashkent where we got away. But our team just doesn't seem to have wheat it takes to impose itself on opponents by possession.
And I don't believe it is CQ's fault.

Most of our players lack composure, accurate passing and ball control when they are pressed by opposition players.