World Cup 2014 - Group F: Preview & Analysis

No.. the Video does NOT work. At least not for me.

 

I don't understand the scheduling problems you guys face. But in general, having your players participate in competitive matches right before the world cup is a VERY GOOD thing. They'll be in shape and form for the World Cup. This might be a big advantage for Iran.

Lots of players from the Bosnian National team will have the opposite problems.

 

Thanks for letting me know. Perhaps others might post some of the videos I am intending to post. Anyway, I will give it one more try!

 

Our coach, Carlos Queiroz, had a press conference in which he dealt with at length with this issue. Basically, his desire is to have the national team players in camp to prepare at the time of the AFC CL matches involving the 4 Iranian clubs that participate in that tournament, while the club coaches clearly want their national team players for those matches. Queiroz mentioned he had a similar issue when he coached a club in Japan in 1998, where 6 of his players were called for national team camp and he wasn't happy but was overruled by the Japanese football federation. He was clearly lobbying for the Iranian football federation to basically do the same and give him the players he wants. Tough choice and decision for all concerned due to this ridiculous AFC schedule.

Querioz also talked about his plans for friendly matches he likes us to play. He mentioned he has obtained the Kuwaiti federation's consent to reschedule our final Asian Cup qualifiers to a couple days earlier, so our team would be able to play a friendly match 2 days later on what is a FIFA day on 5 March. He mentioned Iran has invitations to play an African side as from others. He, however, indicated that while Russia's coach, Capello, has indicated his interest to play Iran, he wasn't interested because his focus is to first make sure we play some African teams and some Latin sides. He also ruled out Iran playing Italy or Spain who were reportedly interested in friendlies against us, saying that those matches aren't going to be helpful!

All in all, from Queiroz comments, Iran plans to hold a camp exclusively for domestic based players and some marginal choices in or around January in South Africa, have a friendly against an African team (probably Ghana) or perhaps Costa Rica on 5 March, then have a camp in Europe to play against 3-4 matches there, have a friendly against an African side in Tehran before heading to Brazil for a camp there where we would be planning to play a couple of friendly matches.

 

I just read that Queiroz doesn't want us to play any World Cup qualified teams at the beginning! If true, on March 5 it won't be Ghana, but instead apparently a side like New Guinea!

I am not happy with that, but what can I do. The guy is our coach.

 

And a chicken shit, too.

Very bad news, for you guys.

For the 1982 WC, our coach back then decided to take the same track that CC wants to take now with your team.

In the days prior to the WC of those days, our NT decide to face lots of weak teams, including some against average clubs, against whom we got excellent results and it made all our fans hold high hopes for our outcome in the WC. Unfortunately, once in the WC, we had to "wake up" to reality, and in it, we had 3 straight loses, in what was to be, probably, our worst performance in a WC in our football history. If it not were to the beating that El Salvador, took from Hungary, and the 3 consecutive beatings that New Zeland took (their first WC), we would have ended as the worst team in that WC. It was a shocking "awakening" for us, and francly, I wouldn`t want it for nobody.

In my opinion (could be wrong), the only way to achieve progress for a team, it is facing other teams at the same level, or inclusively, lots better than your team. It will probably mean, to have some draws and defeats along the way, but in time yor team learns to play against them, better (which doesn't mean that you will beat them easily in the future, but at least you will play them better, and of course some victories may come as well).

 

I honestly wish we could somehow not have him. And soon enough so we could get someone decent with enough time to be helpful. But that is all a pipe dream. He is and will be our coach in Brazil.

In my dreams, of course, Gus Hiddink could be recruited as our interim coach. To guide us until now through the World Cup, after which he is reportedly going back to coaching Holland.

 

We don't really know what is CQ thinking about, but as I told you guys before in the Iranian forum (I think it was there), maybe the man has his head set up on the next WC, the one for 2018 in Russia, so he is taking this WC as preparation for the next one, rather than trying to achieve anything important for your team, now.

In any case, if this is the reason for his actual atitude, imho, it is a very stupid way of thinking, as lots of things can happen till then, including not making it to that WC, where you guys would have lost an excellent opportunity to achieve something meaningful in the WC now in 2014, as this time you got favoured by a generous draw (not saying it is easy, as it isn't), while for the next WC if you guys make it, you could get Australia's luck for this last draw, and get put in a group like the one they will have to face now, where no matter how much your team progress's in the years to come, your team can get equally get beaten in 3 straight games as well. It's simply hard for me to believe he isn't even thinking on the 2018 WC either, but on the one of 2022 (that's a very long time).

 

Well he his contract will expire after World Cup in Brazil. Dont think he will extend, so he will have no part in 2018 World Cup.
CQ seem reluctant to play against high quality opponents, and it is very disturbing. He gave one of the dumbest excuses for not playing Russia, which was that we could meet them in knock-out stage of World Cup (which would be in quarter final I think), LOL. And I dont many expects Iran to end up in top 2 in its group, much less reaching quarter final. Especially since we have no friendlies against formidable opposition arranged.

 

As you brought up in the other thread, the guy took this same idiotic posture as coach of Portugal heading to the 2010 World Cup. After Portugal qualified to the 2010 World Cup, he had them play a total of 4 friendly matches against China, Cape Verde, Cameroon and Mozambique!

 

CQ is just a scaredy cat, plain and simple. There is something wrong w/ his mentality, he did the same thing with Portugal in 2010.

 

carlos is a crappy coach. i said it from the beginning, and i will say it now. yes he did qualify us to the world cup but thats not due to his coaching, its because he is a good motivator and is professional in terms of attitude as opposed to domestic coaches. its a crime for him to reject friendlies when its so hard for us to schedule them. we should be playing the best teams possible. i dont care if we lose 10-0 we badly need the experience.

 

at least portugal did not really need the friendlies as much as we do, so it was somewhat understandable. Iran CANNOT AFFORD to refuse friendlies because we NEED the experience. i dont care if he makes our players the most confident in the world. i dont care if all of our players think they are superman. without practice its impossible to get success. you cant just create success of out nothingness. we badly need the experience.

 

Quieroz literally shocked me when we qualified to the World Cup. But I can't forget his resume, which is littered with failure as a head coach at the senior level. Ask Portugal fans what they think of Queiroz? Ask fans of Real Madrid? Sporting Lisbon? Metro Stars? One of his rare successes was to qualify South Africa to the 2002 World Cup, but he was then let got before the tournament got underway with South African fans enraged at his selections and decisions, demanding he be sacked.

I don't know what is Queiroz's problem, but the guy appears to me to be very arrogant and yet not as accomplished as he imagines himself to be. He has been basically milking his relationships for too long, including his relations with Alex Ferguson. Otherwise, ever since his undeniable success at the youth level with Portugal, what has the guy accomplished for him to imagine that his bizarre notions have any merit?

 

indeed. i pointed that all out when he became Irans head coach but most Iran fans hailed him for no reason. but again, i stress that there is a good side to his employment as TM coach, which is that he is professional and knows how to motivate our players and unite them, which is a big problem in Iranian football. he can also be credited with bringing dejagah and guchanejad, although i dont know how much of an impact he had in bringing them. however, as a coach regarding tactics, i dont see any advantage that he has over a domestic coach (except ali daie, he was just horrible).

and it annoys me how from the beginning he made it seem that it would be a miracle if Iran simply qualified for the world cup. wtf? we HAVE to finish above teams like uzbekistan and qatar. it is not an accomplishment. i dont know if he said that to make himself look better in the end, or he had an inaccurate understanding of Iranian football.

i think the reason why so many Iranians fan praise him is because he is 'khareji.' but they need to realize that just because the Iranian FA is incompetent and corrupt, which means the overall football system in Iran is broken, does not mean that anything Iranian is automatically inferior.

 

the thing is, friendlies against weaker teams are not even guaranteed victories, so they can do double the damage: we will get not experience due to weak opposition, and we will lose too, bringing down confidence. remember albania.

 

Quieroz never said that by the way. Please don't believe everything you read otherwise you would think USA is going to play England in the World Cup final. (heheh) Carlos Quieroz said that he doesn't want to play World cup Opposition NOW, not EVER. He wants to play teams like South Africa/Guinea etc to prepare for Nigeria and to play physical teams in order to prepare for Bosnia. If you heard anyone say that CQ doesn't want friendlies against WC opposition at all it was because an IFF official said that to hide the incompetence of his buddies at securing a WC worthy opponent.

CQ also said that he has been eyeing Aria Hasegawa who plays for F.C. Tokyo in the J-League. He is a 6'1 attacking midfielder and could possibly be added to the team since the Japanese never formally capped him. He was voted J-league player of the month in September

 

playing world cup opposition in friendlies is a luxury for Iran. if we wait too long they might never occur. we have to play at least 1. there is no harm in it.

the half japanese player sounds promising, but for the world cup nekounam and teymourian are fixed in that position. is he an attacking mid? even so, shojaie or jabbari occupy those slots.

 

What are you guys talking about?

We are not Korea, we don't have the luxury of playing 17 friendlies.

When we can only play 4 or 5 friendlies, playing Spain is not going to help us. If we were playing 17 like Korea, sure, throw in a Spanish side too.

If we can only play 4 or 5, we need to use strategy in our decision making. Why play Russia? Don't just assume they play similar to Bosnia. We need to play South Africa/Mali....who play similar to Nigeria. Same thing for Bosnia, and finally Argentina.

Again, we only have 4 or 5 friendlies. What is the point of using 4 friendlies for Russia, Spain, Portugal, Holland? It just doesn't make sense. Sure it would be great to watch these teams, but it would give us very little in terms of preparation for our group.

 

Russia (they have asked for a friendly) would be an appropriate team to simulate Bosnia. Ghana (they have asked for a friendly) would be an excellent team to simulate Nigeria. Spain (they have been reportedly interested to play a friendly against us) could be the kind of team we need to play to prepare for facing Argentina.

Queiroz is not even happy for us to play South Africa to prepare for Nigeria! He wants to play Congo or New Guinea! And the same logic applies: if we are going to have only 4 friendly matches, why waste any of them on the kind of teams that prepare us for nothing.

Unlike most Iranian fans who don't have the luxury to talk to people who know Queiroz in other countries, you have Portuguese fans here in this forum who can tell you all you need to know about him. You can also take a look at Portugal's preparatory schedule before World Cup 2010. He could have tried putting Portugal against the likes of Ghana or Nigeria to simulate the Ivory Coast. Instead, his list focused on 2 non-World Cup qualified teams, Mozambique and Cape Verde, along with CAF's weakest team in WC2010, namely Cameroon.

And what about simulating Brazil in 2010, or Argentina for Iran in 2014? He is even criticizing Iran playing Brazil a couple of years ago, saying that match had no lessons for us.

 

Anyway, I don't want to be unfair to Queiroz either. He has gotten us this far and while I am no fan of Queiroz, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if -- rejecting the teams he has rejected -- we end up with a decent preparatory schedule. But if he then tries to shift blame to the IFF or whoever for not giving us a good schedule, then I am sorry I am not having any of it. The IFF is what it is and as incompetent as it is. Queiroz needs to plan and make his decisions accordingly, and not look for scapegoats all the time.

I personally believe he was given a potential schedule that could easily help him with for the opponents and matches are going to have. Teams that had shown interest to play us were all useful for various reasons. Ghana, Russia, Spain, Italy, Costa Rica, South Africa with Iran adding a couple of more teams in the mix.

 

^^ Only Russia was confirmed. Both the Spain and Ghana friendlies were denied of ever existing. Once again the IFF is talking nonsense, and once again Iranian fans believe everything they read in the newspapers/websites.

And in what way is Russia suitable for prep against Bosnia? How are their styles similar?

 

But the Ghana FA asked for a friendly... So what's up?
http://www.sportsdayonline.com/news.aspx?lb_newsid=2421

Croatia or Serbia would be the best prep for Bosnia. Even Albania.

 

Who denied it??? Ghana officially invited Iran and I don't recall anyone denying it. And Queiroz' comments about the lack of utility playing Spain didn't exactly suggest that the problem was lack of interest from Spain.

I have listened to all sides and the fact seem clear to me. In fact, I don't think they are even in dispute, except by people who prefer to believe that it is the IFF that isn't arranging friendlies as opposed to Queiroz who doesn't want to play teams that are in the World Cup. A preference he showed coaching Portugal as well.

Compared to what? While the best teams to simulate Bosnia would be Balkan sides such as Croatia or Serbia, Russia is alright. And would present a good enough test for us.

 

Whom is CQ considering as a preparation match to face Argentina in the WC afterwards ?, ........, Cuba ?