This was just so embarrassing (Korea-Iran)

[momad2468]

A few points:

* Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The parallels between this WCQ and 2006 are crazy. The tough first round, the easy second round ending with a loss against the key rivals in a dead rubber. Branko had the same issues as Skocic - an over reliance on certain players, baffling selections - ultimately, WC 2006 was a disaster, yet people were saying the same things about Branko as they were about Skocic (he is getting results etc.). We are headed for disaster, and I was saying this before the Korea game. We have shown no improvement over this WCQ campaign.
* A back 4 system relies on players at left and right back who are comfortable on the ball, can deal with a press and pass accurately into space. Even though Shoja was good defensively, he and Milad lost countless balls when they were pressed. The less said about Gholami the better.
* We picked 3 “run like a chicken with their heads cut off” midfielders in Ahmad, Hajsafi and Amiri. They don’t actually understand what a coordinated press looks like. Ahmad often leaves his position to press on his own, leaving huge gaps in midfield. He is honestly one of the weakest players I have seen for TM who gets consistent game time. He is uncomfortable on the ball, and defensively he is actually horrible, despite the fact he runs a lot. His “slide tackle” on Son was laughable, and gave him the space for his shot.
* Tactics were all wrong. Korea is a strong team so no one is expecting us to go there and dominate possession, but their backline is weak and error prone. We gave them what they wanted by starting so defensively.
* On the plus side, I thought Mehdipour and Allahyar looked good when they came on. We are desperate for another quality centre midfielder, I am hopeful Mehdipour can help Ezzatolahi.

[Team Melli Fan]

I am so tired of watching bezan ziresh hoofball

[Pedram88]

Ehsan messed up the dynamic of the game being selfish the first chance Iran had, if Iran scored that goal the energy would of been different. I ONLY BLAME EHSAN

[Payam_Ali]

... in the fairy land of "DRAGAN SKOCIC APPRECIATION THREAD" until full ridehman in WC.

LMFAO

[Keshwardoost]

MOTM for TM is Abedzadeh IMO. The first goal was truly a freak bounce and deflection off his leg, that he would have saved 99 out of 100 attempts. He was clearly frustrated right after it went in knowing that much himself. He had some world class saves, including the two attempts at close range by SK right after the half. Brilliant goal keeping on any level. The second goal wouldn’t have been stopped by most goal keepers. SK just had our defense’s number on that one. Can’t say much for our offense, which was largely isolated, disconnected, and toothless. Azmoun likes to play slower and well behind the defensive line to spring a surprise attack (SK largely neutralized this). Taremi was desperately missed for his constant pressing of the defensive line and more explosive runs.

diz jan i dont agree (probably first time i dont agree with you lol)
for me he was our lowest ranked player, slightly worse than nourollahi and azmoun
the doublesave was after his own created mess though, running out totaly unneccecary and confusing the defender instead of stayin put in goal and waiting for the backpass in the situation before that led to a panic clearance that led to korea getting hold of the ball and then creating that chance right afterwards.. so he created the mess himself. but great saves yes.

also, he wasnt good at positioning himself on the long passes from the sides in to the penalty area, as twice he was coming after the player so one player had open goal but missed the header and the second time the player missed the ball so abedz could grab it afterwards. if he had been half a second faster he would have had a open goal by the nearest post. this is a very very important issue, more than the run out before the doublechance. this is bad at corners aswell and alarming.

beira have never ever come close to making this many errors or this important errors. he got his balls cut of for the misses in his last game but it wasnt half as bad as abedz.
i dont know if people are being gentle with critisizing abedz since he is abedz seniors son but judging purely from his game today he was worse than mirzapour and in levels with talebloo. i have never seen beira have a closly bad game as this and he should be given the next game,
not saying abedz is bad and he is atleast our 2 goalie, but if we are going to judge him the on the same premise as beira, in the same way, he was waay worse then beira has ever been, with or without gametime.

My Man of Match is Kanaani by miles, followed by Shoja for his first half.

[Ostad_Goosfand]

Just seen the game. we actually played well early on and for most of first half hanging on in difficult environment with depleted squad.

Abedzadeh made a huge error, but who was the moron who completely misstimed his slide tackle before the goal? Nourollahi? it was one of the dumbest tackles ive seen, it gave Son acres of space

anyway, I also did not see Hajsafi even touch the ball for like 50 minutes. how is he still on the team?

By the end, I was hoping korea would score a few more goals so we had an excuse to fire Skocic. I thank Skocic for taking us out of bahrain.iraq mess and for qualifying us this round with minimal error, but 1-1 at home to korea, 2-0 away to korea. he is simply not good enough for the world cup. we need a world class tactician otherwise we will have 2006 results except 10x worse.

[The]

Why does any of this matter that much, considering the 1st leg match was much more important for TM, and even Skocic?
I mean outside of the whole pot 2-3 discussion - what else is there really that mattered about this match besides some streak?
Not to say TM played well, just that I don't think its as catastrophic as some make it to be.

To me it matters because it's a preview of what will happen when we play against competent opposition at the world cup.

It also shows that our coaching staff is unable to identify and adjust their game plan based on flaws we have seen with these tactics/players through out the qualifying rounds. As a coach you should be able to identify the deficiencies of the team even when you get results and try to improve the performance. My point is that it's s not "just this game".

If our goal is to "just be happy to be at the world cup", then sure we have done good enough, but as it stands, based on the performances in the qualifying rounds, we are looking at a last place finish in the group unless we have the luckiest draw of all time.

[taremiscores]

Allahyar really needs to finish this. Nothing fancy, just put it past the keeper. You're not Messi.

[vatanparast]

Really got this dude off of his high horse thinking beating Arab teams who never qualified to a WC in their lives was him actually doing something.
Skocic played Korea last time at home with no Legionaries missing and to a line up we have been using for several years. It was the players who tied that game.
Playing Korea at home with key players missing is a managers time to shine and to show what he can do tactically.
What we saw today was just that.

Most of the time everyone just remembers the result. If I recall Skocic got the home game completely wrong, he made the changes in the second half. In his post game interview he said "I made the wrong decisions on purpose to catch korea off guard. lol." He is not tm material, he should thank fatty Belgium thief marc wilmots that made skocic look good.

[Kavian]

actually what is more embarrising than todays display from Iran NT is how some people here come and say Skokic should be fired. People say that its just on the players that we qualified and coach did little job. Well then why did the same players not perform in first round when we had Willtitts as our coach? Skokic obviously has done something right to get us this far. I am not saying he is a great coach or that we must keep him but to fire him just cuz of todays performance is bellow us.
If we have a better alternative then sure lets change him. But we all know that we DONT have any better alternative...

Please don't be too surprised! That is just what makes us Iranians!

You know the expression in Farsi that says; "Ba ye keshmesh garmish misheh, Ba ye baadoom Sardish" ... It roughly translates into English as "It takes little for one to go from one extreme to another" !

A couple of wins against minnows, coach becomes God, Appreciation Threads get open, stats get published on his records, people write poems in praising him, etc. The other game we lose, he becomes the worse and people call for his head. I am just waiting for Mr. (sorry Dr.) Zulfaghar-Nasab (football scientist) to show up on TV and express his totally changed opinion on the coach! ... One game he shows good goalkeeping, he becomes number one choice ever! , another game shows a Sooti, people write about lack of experience and not being a WC material.

.. And this is not just for football ... Look at our politics (i need not to give examples).

[diz]

MOTM for TM is Abedzadeh IMO. The first goal was truly a freak bounce and deflection off his leg, that he would have saved 99 out of 100 attempts. He was clearly frustrated right after it went in knowing that much himself. He had some world class saves, including the two attempts at close range by SK right after the half. Brilliant goal keeping on any level. The second goal wouldn’t have been stopped by most goal keepers. SK just had our defense’s number on that one. Can’t say much for our offense, which was largely isolated, disconnected, and toothless. Azmoun likes to play slower and well behind the defensive line to spring a surprise attack (SK largely neutralized this). Taremi was desperately missed for his constant pressing of the defensive line and more explosive runs.

[Ghermez Agha]

actually what is more embarrising than todays display from Iran NT is how some people here come and say Skokic should be fired. People say that its just on the players that we qualified and coach did little job. Well then why did the same players not perform in first round when we had Willtitts as our coach? Skokic obviously has done something right to get us this far. I am not saying he is a great coach or that we must keep him but to fire him just cuz of todays performance is bellow us.

If we have a better alternative then sure lets change him. But we all know that we DONT have any better alternative...

It’s sad but true we might not have a better alternative but I might even at this point be in favor of irooni coach over him like maybe promoting Hashemian to HC. At least out of that we get the benefit of one of our coaches who has played and coached in Germany some valuable experience.

Skocic is no charlatan like wilmots, however, he is indeed an amateur and after today there is no more debate to be had on this. He is yet to maximize the potential of this team, address the holes/weaknesses of this team, come up with a solid rotation that makes sense with the players he has at his disposal. He has created a United TM camp and instilled some discipline and for that I can appreciate him but my appreciation starts and ends there. If he is our coach at the WC we will not make it out of the group no matter who we get/what pot we are in. He could not impress against SK twice. Every other competitive match against UAE or Bahrain and co. is not proof of being able to beat a strong opposition we will face in the WC.

[inarsenewetrust]

ITs good I cant even see the people usually so far up skocic's you know where that their brains are deprived from oxygen too active atm. Some of them even correctly predicted impending failure and jumped ship before the game lol.

There are so many issues with what we saw but to summarize a few...

1. Player Selection in squad and in xi/subs:

It started with the list. In general when you are highly dependent on Ezatolahi, Moharrami, Taremi and backups arent in the same league you should be make concerted effort to incorporate a few alternate options throughout the qualification process so that when said players are not available, you have built up some replacements who have some experience and understand what is expected of them. To me it seemed one such player was Hardani, who suddenly in best form doesnt even make the list. The best replacement for Saeid is clearly Omid Ebrahimi...he doesnt get a callup but suddenly Kamal Kamyabinia does? We have quite a few solid offensive options in europe, especially Alipour and Mohebbi who continue to display solid form and growing confidence. With Azmoun as isolated as he was tonight, would it not have been wise to have these 2 options instead of players even Skocic doesnt feel comfortable using (Torabi, Ansarifard).

Going into xi...bizarre choices to play guys out of position. At least shoja has experience at RB for PP and did well there, but noorafkan at DM? He wasnt good enough to play DM for charleroi and they sent him back to iran. In sepahan he wasnt good enough for mid zone and eventually settled at LB. How can he start such a hard game at DM for TM? Hajsafi in midfield, again super questionable. Then the Gholami sub was icing on the cake. The guys reaction seemed like nobody told him going in at RB was a possibility...Given shoja's questionable fitness pre game this was definitely something that warranted proper consideration and preparation. Why not just play a typical right back and one of the best in the league, esmailifar?


2. Players not understanding their roles / how to adjust to new game situations

Builds on point 1. But not sure these guys even knew what they needed to do. Amiri looked lost, Milad had zero clue how to advance the ball, the midfield was totally dysfunctional and provided no outlets for the defenders to pass through. Seriously, what was the role of the respective CMs today? What did they bring to the game? Gholami looked lost and frightened and positionally very off. Iranian players are limited in many ways and need a very narrow scope of tactical responsibility, with super defined tasks, like CQ gave them. Then they can excel. Unfortunately Sko just puts them out there with seemingly little instruction and it shows. When we went 1-0 down he had 15 mins to organize the team for a comeback...Instead they went out and looked worse. Its almost as if nobody calculated the possibility that we go behind and what to do if it happened. Issue with having a novice coach whose biggest job was malavan coaching at this level, he has never had to react in such a situation, he has no clue what to do. Meanwhile with CQ we went down vs Portugal, tied the game and had great opportunities to win it as well. Ditto for performance after going behind vs Spain. Clearly he planned for the event we concede a goal.

3. Isolation of Sardar

Sardar is a gem. With Taremi our only top class player. And his mentality is great and that of a pure fighter, look at all the times he saved our ass from difficult situations throughout this qualification process. Despite him not being in top shape at the moment, he can still be more than useful. To maximize the potential of our best player, we need to ensure even if we adopt a counter attacking approach that he is not overly isolated. He looked like new life was injected into him when Allahyar came on, should have had a brilliant assist and finally had one of his great runs recognized by allahyar's cross. Allahyar should have been there from minute 1 today. Instead we got the bizarre combo of Norafkan, Nourollahi, Hajsafi and Amiri, quite literally in addition to milad the weakest players from technical perspective on TM.

4. Skocic is out of his depth.

Those who say otherwise live in a different world, one where somebody whose biggest jobs were malavan and khoone be khoone, where he had subpar results, will suddenly be able to compete with international coaches at worst the level of today's bento, and likely much much better at the WC. He is purely reactionary, doesnt plan for second and third scenarios, has the most weird player selection that confuses even himself, and has zero long term vision or planning. We should have been incorporating guys like Allahyar, Hardani, Mehdipour, Yasin Salmani, and another alternate LB option for the past 1yr+ so in the event they are needed they know their jobs and have the confidence to produce. This doesnt necessarily mean starting them, but continuously incorporating them and improving their level. Look at how CQ experimented with guys like Mohammad Ansari, Rouzbeh Cheshmi, Majid Hosseini in leadup to WC so that in the event he determined Jalal wouldnt be able to cut it, the other options had time to show themselves and establish who was best suited to play and what their job was. Look at how he determinde perfect CM to partner saeid was ebrahimi after trying guys like abdollahzadeh, Akbar Imani, Hajsafi in CM slot. He did it gradually in a way where overall balance of team was not disturbed and if these test players performed badly they were not exposed, but still allowed him to assess which ones would be useful moving forward.

Lot of work needed. I prefer to view today as a positive though. Imagine he squeaked a crappy draw or something, there would be no touching him or demanding improvement and everybody would remain in the fairy land of "DRAGAN SKOCIC APPRECIATION THREAD" until full ridehman in WC.

[Nokhodi]

The problems today were nothing new. They've been there for most games of the qualifying, but we just ignored them "because at the end of the day only the results matter".

Well there you go... a team that can't handle a above average pressing game. a team where most players are standing still off the ball, a team where you can fly a 747 through the gap between the midfield and defender, a team where players are constantly getting in each others way and huddling in the box on defence and offence.

I really hope this humbles the coach, the players and federation a bit, but I think if they weren't humbled by nearly losing to Lebanon, and scraping by with 1-0 wins against low level asian teams, I don't think this will be the wake up call either. They'll just blame Mehdi and JB missing and think we can continue like this into the WC.

On positive note, take some pride on how long we'd been undefeated by Korea. We truly are a powerhouse of Asian football.

Why does any of this matter that much, considering the 1st leg match was much more important for TM, and even Skocic?

I mean outside of the whole pot 2-3 discussion - what else is there really that mattered about this match besides some streak?

Not to say TM played well, just that I don't think its as catastrophic as some make it to be.

[Golefarsi]

actually what is more embarrising than todays display from Iran NT is how some people here come and say Skokic should be fired. People say that its just on the players that we qualified and coach did little job. Well then why did the same players not perform in first round when we had Willtitts as our coach? Skokic obviously has done something right to get us this far. I am not saying he is a great coach or that we must keep him but to fire him just cuz of todays performance is bellow us.

If we have a better alternative then sure lets change him. But we all know that we DONT have any better alternative...