Do we really need to be so defensive?

[KC McElroy]

8 posts, joins June 2018.
Most members here have been watching Iranian soccer religiously for the last 10+ years.
We are not good enough to not play defensive against Spain or Portugal. If you don't think so go watch our friendly a month ago against Turkey where we didn't play defensive.

Highlights for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-q8jcQQHGU

Did you watch the last 30 minutes of our game against Spain?

[Roozbeh-G2006]

I believe in a few years when B'vand has become the world #1 keeper ( I believe he has what it takes) and we are assured of total shut down of our goal with a solid 4 defenders, we will be unstoppable going forward and will achieve greater heights. But for now maybe it is better to be on the safe side.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

Answer: YES!

Reason:
1, FITNESS, GAME SPEED of IPL nowhere near EUROPEAN leagues.
To play attacking football, you need to run 90 mins game after game! we can’t!
2, Italy won world cup 4 times with same startegy as ours! I don’t have a problem with it.
3, We dont play 90 mins defensively! We furstrate opponents, who see us as underdog and go on full attack for 50-60 mins, and when they lose concentration we start attacking! Even if Spain wouldn’t have scored that goal we would have done the same attacks, as we did vs Argentina 2nd half! This is called Game Strategy!
4, we used to play attacking football in WC2006. What happened? disaster vs. Mexico, disaster vs Portugal etc etc...

I am happy and fine with this strategy!

[CanadianEh]

I think we have the quality to attack but we don't have the quality to go end-to-end with the best teams over 90 minutes. Remember our team in 2006? We were stacked offensively and everyone thought we would come out guns blazing and bag 2-3 goals a game. It's not that easy to score against top sides and the reality is that our defenders do not play regularly against world class players. You cannot expect them to bail us out 6 or 7 times a game with half our team ahead of the ball and amazing players running at them full speed. Carlos understands our strengths and weaknesses and sets us up in a way that keeps us in every match. For those of us that our now watching Iran in their 4th (or even 5th) World Cup, I can tell you that watching this team play is much more exciting because I actually feel like we can upset any team with a little bit of luck.

Stay in the game and push for a goal towards the end if we still need one. Would you prefer we play like Saudi Arabia !?

[pdot]

8 posts, joins June 2018.
Most members here have been watching Iranian soccer religiously for the last 10+ years.
We are not good enough to not play defensive against Spain or Portugal. If you don't think so go watch our friendly a month ago against Turkey where we didn't play defensive.

Highlights for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-q8jcQQHGU

[Camran khan]

Hmmmm I wonder then why Italia and Greece failed to qualify. The game is evolving and teams are finding ways of punishing ultra defensive strategies...it can be an effective tactic at times within a game but if it's your only strategy you are doomed to be broken down. Either way I hope we can get a goal or two today and do something historical!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Actually I see it the other way around. I'm not saying TM is playing the ideal way, sure we have lots of ways to improve, but I keep seeing more and more 'smaller' teams manage to steal points from bigger teams by playing defensive, something that didn't happen as frequently before.

[Sam khan]

Hmmmm I wonder then why Italia and Greece failed to qualify. The game is evolving and teams are finding ways of punishing ultra defensive strategies...it can be an effective tactic at times within a game but if it's your only strategy you are doomed to be broken down. Either way I hope we can get a goal or two today and do something historical!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Glad I'm not the only one then.

Yes Italy have a worldwide reputation for being boring boring Italy. It's painful to watch and thankfully they are slipping as a result. And yeah Greece made a mockery of football a few years ago doing well by basically not playing football but defending. Despite being the Euro 2004 winners that way I can tell you outside of Greece I don't think there's a single football fan in Europe who thinks they're anything more than a poor team. Noone thinks "oh look, the might Greece!". It was regarded as a cowardly anomaly. It was basically bullshit and they continue to be a nothing team.

I do think we need to play counterattacking football against Portugal, but I believe we actually have the quality to attack when we want to.

The sign of a good team that people respect, is a team that can attack when it needs to. Iran CAN attack when we need to, as we showed against Spain.

It's sad that you think you will be grilled for suggesting it. People who do so are doing the team a disservice. Football is 50% mental. If the fans and the manager think we are not good enough then we have no hope. Azmoun wouldn't have missed that chance against Morocco if he had more confidence. Where will it come from if it doesn't come from realising the fact that we are actually quite a decent attacking side?

[O-ZoNe]

See our defending team in developement. Right now we can defend and counter much better when you compare it to 2014, where we weren't thad bad either. The goal should be to one day play like Atletico Madrid.

Also defensive football is effective and I for instance love to watch it!

Hmmmm I wonder then why Italia and Greece failed to qualify. The game is evolving and teams are finding ways of punishing ultra defensive strategies...it can be an effective tactic at times within a game but if it's your only strategy you are doomed to be broken down. Either way I hope we can get a goal or two today and do something historical!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[AsOen5]

See our defending team in developement. Right now we can defend and counter much better when you compare it to 2014, where we weren't thad bad either. The goal should be to one day play like Atletico Madrid.

Also defensive football is effective and I for instance love to watch it!

[O-ZoNe]

I like attacking football but defensive has made our team concede less than before which is good in its own way. Anyways whatever happens against Portugal.

I'm gonna get grilled...but in 5 WC matches from 2014 till now we have scores 2x...one was an own goal. Zero chance you can progress with a stat like that even if you do not get scored on have perfect defense!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[Rooyintan]

I like attacking football but defensive has made our team concede less than before which is good in its own way. Anyways whatever happens against Portugal.

[KC McElroy]

I agree that the first 60 minutes were embarrassing. Not so much that we were playing defensive, but rather because all we were doing was waiting for Spain to lose possession at which time we would simply aimlessly boot the ball as far away as possible. The last 30 minutes we were on equal terms with them.

[SkyeKingu]

"Am I an outlier with my views?"

Yes.

[Sam khan]

Yes.

Next question.

And don't refer to one of our best and most credible performances as 'embarrassing', you're doing the team a real disservice.

Hehe fair enough that was easy for you to answer !

I'm new here so I don't know what the mood of fellow Iranian fans is in general hence this post. Obviously you believe that we need to be so defensive, but is this the view of most Iranian fans? Am I an outlier with my views?

As for calling the Spain game embarrassing you're right of course it wasn't embarrassing. The boys did us proud. 1-0 against possibly the best team in the world? Great chances where we could have equalised? A flukey Spain goal? Of course I have nothing but respect for that performance and the last thing I would do is to do the team a disservice, you're spot on with that. What I am saying though is that when we started actually playing football in the second half I think we shocked everyone, including ourselves. The Spanish looked visibly shaken as we were humiliating them by putting the ball through their legs, intricate passing over the pitch, great powerful balls into the box and decent chances on their goal. Certainly on the commentary I watched in teh first half the commentators were talking about Iran like they were little boys lucky to even be in the world cup and all they could hope for was a draw by putting 11 in the box. One commentator even said "I hope Iran lose with a performance like this". After the second half it was a totally different story. They were all giving Iran huge amounts of praise for playing very decent attacking football. In my humble opinion the attitude of "we're rubbish we need to put 11 in the box because we're only crappy Iran who can't ever hope for anything more" is what REALLY does the team a disservice. On the contrary I'm praising the team even more by saying "you did very well, but actually you are BETTER than you think."

[Tehranto]

Oh God ...