Iran vs South Korea post match discussion and player ratings

[PSGman#19]

Iranian football ecosystem gives too much importance to IPL and its current and former players. That's why Ghoddos, Zahedi, Allahyar are snubbed for sarlak, nour, torabi, Ghaedi.

Just watch Iranian newspapers front-page. Everthing is about PP/SS, IPL, former PP/SS in qatar oe uae (even foreigners like stramma, schafer). Azmoun, taremi and other euro legionnaires masterclass are always put in a small corner.

Iranian football ecosystem as a whole should understand that the key of iranian football is the European football (aka the center of the world football). Iranians themselves broadcast all the European football, people are following it and fans of euro clubs. In a Normal world we should focus on friendlies with euro teams (at least eastern ones) and having coachs from Europe.
With sanctions and political issues, I know it is nearly impossible, so the priority is to send players as much as possible in euro leagues. We should milk portuguese and Belgium interest to the max, stop rewarding and glorifying IPL forever players or qataris/uae legionnaires.
Neither our domestic coaches, nor qatar/uae will teach our players the fundamentals and high level.

[peiman92]

I see members screaming "why is Saman benched!?" after every game.
While i agree that he should be playing more, i'm afraid he won't as along as TM gets results with him warming the bench.

The only player he realistically can replace in the lineup is Nourollahi IMO.
If Nourollahi doesn't make a huge mistake, gets suspended or injured Saman won't start. Deal with it, i have.

[Shayan_91]

Looking at all the games we had vs. Korea since 2004 (I started seriously following TM after AC 2004), I can only think of ONE game in which we really dominated them and that was in October 2016 in Azadi (link below). The rest of the games were all either balanced or dominated by them - let's be fully honest to ourselves. Yesterday's game was the 2nd best performance vs. Korea I can think of. It was balanced with a tendency to us having had the higher chances for a win (chances 5 vs. 4). We lead the group and basically don't have to worry too much about qualifying. Funny enough, people are still complaining. A couple of years ago, we were convinced that we lie 20 years behind Korea/Japan. Today, we are on the same level at least, and are still not happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmjBmlNCmw

[rdwrrr]

Ezzatollahi has been one of the best players for last three games. He is the Boss.

[Farzadfarhangni]

I won’t provide ratings but provide some general comments.

We tied our closest competitor and are first in our group. That in itself is a huge positive. Let’s be grateful considering how easy these things can go off track.

Best players today were Ezatollahi (by far) and then Amiri.
Physically they destroyed the Koreans, made excellent tackles and didn’t waste the ball often.
Ezatollahi is a classic player and really reminds me of Bagheri. There is a reason CQ constantly invited him to TM even when he was barely playing for months in his clubs.

Moharrami was really bad. Way too inconsistent. How can someone be so good and then bad in the next game ?
The central defenders were also quite bad. JB had a really bad first half too.

Some of you are asking why Ghodoos wasn’t bought in?
It’s quite simple - Ghodoos is superior offensively compared to all our midfielders, but he does not have the defensive capabilities that Nourollahi has.
With Nourollahi we basically play 2 DMs even though it doesn’t look like it. Nourollahi though is not a good player offensively so you all get pissed.
Once Korea scored, TM really picked it up and was attacking constantly without giving much shape defensively.
At that stage Skocic isn’t going to weaken the defensive capabilities of the team, when he believes the offense is going to get it done; he was right too - we should have 3 goals in the 2nd half at least.

For those complaining this is a weak group - you can only play who is in front of you. These games are ridiculously hard mentally. We have seen TM f up before in easy groups. One game at a time, that’s all you can do.

For those who saw our defense be challenged - what did you think was going to happen? We played a relatively open and attacking game - of course a team like South Korea will counter and challenge. They,re damn good at that, show some respect.

For those who keep crying for Ghaedi - he’s not the player you think he is. 15 years ago we had annoying fans constantly asking for Kazemian, Mobali, Borhani, and Enayati… and they all messed up… Ghaedi isn’t much better - that’s right, I said it.
I even think that nourollahi and Ghaedi won’t be in TM within 6 months - UAE is going to destroy their football like it has countless others.

For those who want flawless football - it doesn’t exist. Go back to PlayStation.

Now we need to prep for the next 2 games. Those games will be dirty and intense.
Also a very good opportunity for Ghodoos to start.

TLDR; calm yourselves, you’re running around like headless chicken.

I agree with every point you made and I'd like to address another concern that has been brought up over and over today by many which is the very late substitutions. I was surprised myself by lack of substitutions until I watched the game a second time. Then it dawned on me. Iran was dominating and I mean dominating most of the second half and particularly from 67th minute to 82nd minute. We hit the post, scored a goal and hit the post again during this 15 minutes. Why change the chemistry when it is working... It really felt like this group of players could go on and get the second goal. From 82nd to 87th minute, SK started to get some kind of control over the game and that is when Skocic decided to go for subs which were only able to enter the field in the 89th minute.

[Futbaldoost]

There are a decent number of objective and quality posts this time. Reading this forum is definitely not a waste of time and in many cases educational. Regarding Sko, I think he has done a great job bringing us to this point and overall TM had a good performance especially in the second half plus the fact that a few centimeters in the right direction and we would have had a 3-1 win. I also agree that Sko showed certain limitations in risk taking today that could hurt in the long run when it comes to utilizing all of our talent at the World Cup. As others have said, he was conservative today by not utilizing Saman, Torabi, Ansarifard and Ghayedi (earlier). His cautiousness makes sense now, the question is whether he is capable of going to the next level and taking the risks to win and in the process create a cohesive team that could go further than the group stage in WC. Considering the fact that none of us predicted this kind of performance from him when he took the reins of TM, I would say he has it in him to become a world class coach. He needs to show in action that he is capable of creating a multidimensional team that has a variety of tactical offerings and could be unpredictable on the world stage.

Go TM!

[kingbijan]

A lot of overreactions, but I think 1-1 is a good result. Korean media was making it a big deal about how their team has not been able to score or get a result in Tehran, and I think that gave their team extra motivation. However, I was convinced Taremi’s shot was heading into the goal, so unlucky to hit the lost.

I think that with the pressure of this match from both national media’s and fans, both coaches were determined not to lose. Both coaches see beating UAE/Iraq/Lebanon as the key to qualification.

[milad_b]

He has barely played this season with Brentford (86 minutes total), a

But how many minutes did hajsafi play this season? He was injured too. How how many minutes has sarlak played or even trained this season (0minutes)? Skocic in his interview said that IPL players are not fit to play but then he goes on and plays them! Something doesn't make sense.


I feel like skocic doesn't know how to use players that are physically weaker for their posts. That includes ghaedi too. Saman is not a deffensive MD , ahmad noor is a DF MD and physically stronger. I think we all can agree that skocic loves ahmad and its all down to either use Ezza or saman!

[The Realist]

With so many legionnaires making up TM nowadays, despite most of these players having played together for a while, we keep seeing confusion in our lines of communication, lots of miss-passes and loss of balls. These issues will continue come the game against Lebanon and Syria in November and then beyond. Fortunately given the calibre of these teams bar SK, we are expected to cope and triumph.

It will be a different story when we eventually qualify and with the end May 2022 being the likely date for international domestic leagues to end, followed by a summer vacation and then start of the leagues in August followed by November being the start of Qatar 2022, TM must now and not then start organising some serious camps and European/South American and African friendlies for say July and early November. Easier said than done but a MUST.

Player fatigue will definitely surface given the heavy toll above and Dragan must use the entire squad for games. We more and less keep seeing the same players making up the first 11. Hell, we are not even using our subs!

[oracle]

Rb Its a problem
all over iran league
yeah today sk goal
looked like moharami fault
but when middle get split like
that 2 center defenders
and dmf is fault
moharami ran with him
to cover so since he was
last man he takes the fault
dont getme wrong
moharami is weak for tm starter
and teams plan attacks from
his side
but we all new our last 2 defenders
are due for disaster
shoja got lucky last game.

shoja khalizad can play
rb as he has that in his resume

suggestion
shija rb
hssein majidi
kanani center defenders
heck dint matter
since 6 pointsagaunst
lebnon and syria
my grand mother can play
rb and we should win

[Under Lahaf]

if we had VAR (like many other nations in this world), the following would have triggered a review;

1. Korean player tackle on Taremi in 18 yard - Looked like a foul and it was a penalty

I thought I read in this forum? that we were going to have VAR by this game?

Not having VAR could've cost us 3 points! this is beyond ridiculous.


Korea got lucky, the result could've been much better but it doesn't change the fact that first half was very shaky and even boring. TM came alive after it fell behind.

[Nokhodi]

I won’t provide ratings but provide some general comments.

We tied our closest competitor and are first in our group. That in itself is a huge positive. Let’s be grateful considering how easy these things can go off track.

Best players today were Ezatollahi (by far) and then Amiri.
Physically they destroyed the Koreans, made excellent tackles and didn’t waste the ball often.
Ezatollahi is a classic player and really reminds me of Bagheri. There is a reason CQ constantly invited him to TM even when he was barely playing for months in his clubs.

Moharrami was really bad. Way too inconsistent. How can someone be so good and then bad in the next game ?
The central defenders were also quite bad. JB had a really bad first half too.

Some of you are asking why Ghodoos wasn’t bought in?
It’s quite simple - Ghodoos is superior offensively compared to all our midfielders, but he does not have the defensive capabilities that Nourollahi has.
With Nourollahi we basically play 2 DMs even though it doesn’t look like it. Nourollahi though is not a good player offensively so you all get pissed.
Once Korea scored, TM really picked it up and was attacking constantly without giving much shape defensively.
At that stage Skocic isn’t going to weaken the defensive capabilities of the team, when he believes the offense is going to get it done; he was right too - we should have 3 goals in the 2nd half at least.

For those complaining this is a weak group - you can only play who is in front of you. These games are ridiculously hard mentally. We have seen TM f up before in easy groups. One game at a time, that’s all you can do.

For those who saw our defense be challenged - what did you think was going to happen? We played a relatively open and attacking game - of course a team like South Korea will counter and challenge. They,re damn good at that, show some respect.

For those who keep crying for Ghaedi - he’s not the player you think he is. 15 years ago we had annoying fans constantly asking for Kazemian, Mobali, Borhani, and Enayati… and they all messed up… Ghaedi isn’t much better - that’s right, I said it.
I even think that nourollahi and Ghaedi won’t be in TM within 6 months - UAE is going to destroy their football like it has countless others.

For those who want flawless football - it doesn’t exist. Go back to PlayStation.

Now we need to prep for the next 2 games. Those games will be dirty and intense.
Also a very good opportunity for Ghodoos to start.

TLDR; calm yourselves, you’re running around like headless chicken.

[Payam_Ali]

We need PAG back. In addition, I don't understand why Majid Hosseini, Pejman Montazeri and the rest of the defensive line from WC2018 hasn't got any consideration of being called up.

PAG tore his ACL. Who knows if he will ever be the same, let alone better than Shoja and Kaanani, who beat him out for three starting spot when he was healthy

[Karimi 8]

why doesnt ghoddos play?i think is a personal thing the coach and karim bagheri and hashemian dont play him on purpose

He has barely played this season with Brentford (86 minutes total), and he was rarely used under Carlos, and now Skocic. I don't know the reason, but it can't be a coincidence.I don't understand because the times he has been on, he has done well for the most part, it is so confusing...

[ehsan singapore]

why doesnt ghoddos play?i think is a personal thing the coach and karim bagheri and hashemian dont play him on purpose