WC 2018 Group B: Spain Portugal Iran Morocco

Exactly. Especialy in the second half. There was one situation were Amrabat was alone on the left wing and no one went into the box.

 

0-0 v Ukraine? Ouch

 

Seems like Amrabat is Morocco's most important player in terms of moving the ball into the final third. Am I wrong Morocco fans?

 

I like Iran. They're a defensive side, yes, but they don't lose their head. I can see them having trouble when facing Spain's high-pressing. But against Portugal, a team far too dependent on wing play, they can do some serious damage.

Spain is clearly the favorite in this group and can't add much. They're one of the three strong contenders, with quality all over the field. And this is basically the ideal group for them.

The starting game, Morocco-Iran, is going to set the tone for what Morocco is going to try to achieve. I expect them to be a lot more defensive than they showed in the CAF, they lack in firepower up front. I expect Iran to do most of the attacking, after all they got guys like Ansarifard and Ghooch.

Morocco 0 - 1 Iran
Portugal 1 - 3 Spain

Portugal 2 - 0 Morocco
Iran 1 - 2 Spain

Iran 1 - 1 Portugal
Spain 1 - 0 Morocco

Spain 9
Portugal 4/+2
Iran 4/+1
Morocco 0

 

To each their own, it just doesnt make sense to me how you can believe Morocco doesnt score a single goal in this tournament.. to further that, the fact you believe Portugal will advance via goal differential, and have Spain beating them by 2.. yet both Iran and Morocco will be closer games in your mind then the Spain/Portugal match?

Interesting. Lets see what happens.

 

Spain knows Portugal like its hand. And Portugal refuses to go defensive when facing the Spaniards. That always cost them.

Actually, I like Iran better than Portugal (as in, how they play as a team) but the Portuguese have Ronaldo, and that's what saves them.

Anyway, it's just for fun. The results are likely to be completely different

 

my final prediction for Iran:

Iran 0-0 or 1-1 morocco (although it is possible we win by 1 goal)
Iran 0-1 spain (i just dont see us getting a point from spain/spain not scoring against us. it could be 1-2 but i think 0-1 is more likely)
Iran 0-2 or 1-3 portugal (only reason being that we will enter this game chasing 3 points while portugal needs only a draw, so we will attack and our gaps get exposed; if this was the first match of the group stage i think we could very well have gotten a draw against portugal)

in the rare case that we go into the portugal game needing less points than portugal, then it would be 1-1

 

the one thing i would note about your prediction is that you said Iran will attack more than morocco. i dont think so. it will either be even or morocco will attack more. but who knows at this point after CQs strange friendlies in which we play offensive... maybe he wants to make morocco a do or die game and go for the 3 points or die trying. maybe that would explain his recent changes to the squad. in that case, if we do get the 3 points, then we bunker with 11 behind the ball against spain and portugal and hope to get 1 point. that would give 4 points and a good chance to advance. maybe CQ thinks that if we only get 1 point against morocco then we would finish with no more than 2 points which will most likely not be enough. however, in our previous do or die games, aka vs south korea for 2014 qualification, and bosnia in world cup 2014, CQ still played a super defensive line up and tactic, relying on the counterattack. so maybe that is what he will do against morocco after all.

 

i hate to say this but when i think about it, our 2018 team is not better than our 2014 team, in terms of individual strength.

our 2018 keeper is worse than our 2014 keeper.

our defense is weaker due to the exclusion of jalal hosseini. in 2014 he was younger and had perfect form. this time he is not even going to play. the rest of our defenders are at the same level of our 2014 ones.

in terms of defensive midfield, 2014 had a clear advantage. nekounam and teymourian were both experienced and good. now we only have ezatollahi, and even he is not at their level, although close. he wont even be able to play against morocco.

so overall, in terms of defense, we are worse off.

but that is balanced out by our improvement in offense. we now have jahanbakhsh and azmoun.

so overall: we have worse defense but better offense. so overall roughly the same. our 2014 group (bosnia+nigeria) would have been ideal for our 2018 team (good offense), and our 2014 team would have been ideal for our 2018 group (spain+portugal) due to good defense. the timing is messed up.

maybe this is why CQ is attacking: he thinks we have a better chance of advancing if we go for the 3 points against morocco by playing to our strength (attacking). im not sure if this is true though. im only 50% sure about it.

 

As I said in group A's thread we can't judge the teams from their friendlies against non qualified teams in this first phase of the pre-WC camps where training are more based on the physical. Russia lost to Austria, Egypt drew to Koweit, Iran lost to Turkey and that doesn't have more meaning than this 0 - 0 between Morocco and Ukraine.
those teams will have a different pace in the WC.

 

For me, the best news that would immediately work like a shot to boost my confidence in our team, would be if I heard Queiroz saying that S.J. Hosseini is being invited back and that he has decided Rouzbeh Cheshmi will only be a substitute DM and will not be playing CB for Iran. While some damage is already done with our poor preparations and with these cancelled friendlies making things worse, and our misguided system in the one real friendly we had against Turkey not helping either, if those two things happened, I would regain a bit of my confidence.

For now, however, all I have to hope for is that Queiroz is not thinking about anything besides doing his best for Iran to do well - and that his judgment isn't being skewed by his stubborn streak or any a priori assumptions. Otherwise, though, if Iran starts Cheshmi as CB, I will assume we will be allowing goals. If we top that mistake with having an attacking midfielder like Masoud Shojaie play as our DM, I will be almost sure our defense will be in trouble. If we do this while having a forward like Ansarifard play as a central midfielder in this kind of a set up, my worries will be even accentuated further and if we use to 2 overlapping fullbacks in this type of an unbalanced set up, the whole thing will begin to look lost even before kickoff. This just doesn't make sense to me. Yes, I had mentioned Iran using 4 forwards (one of them nominally playing in midfield) away against Qatar or in the first half against Algeria, but that won't work if at the same time our d-mid is also an attacking midfielder like Shojaie with little defensive acumen. And even the best organized side can be turned into a mess if Cheshmi is our CB.

 

saw the Morocco match, and I think some fans are being very harsh.

Yes I agree Morocco's main problem is the striking department, they lack a clear goal scorer, but their buildup play and midfield possession was beautiful to watch. Easily gonna be one of the most entertaining sides to watch in this WC. They looked like Brazil, Portugal, Spain, except in the final third of course.

Ziyech, Bousouffa, El Ahamadi, Mendyl all had great games. Aamrabat was good too. I think Morocco is fully capable of getting out of this group, will they is another story though.

 

You are going way overboard with the praise but I agree their performance was solid and they showed themselves a decent side. But in terms of being so entertaining and comparing them to Spain or Brazil, I was neither so entertained nor so impressed They might be compared to Portugal, who (but for Ronaldo) aren't that special to me.

 

For those who follow the EPL, how would you rate Turkey/Everton's Tosan? I like to know how much of the disastrous display by Cheshmi against Tosan (who scored both goals for Turkey and had 2 other good chances while being marked by Cheshmi) is a discredit to Cheshmi as CB and how much it is a credit to Tosan? As an aside, Chehsmi isn't reliable when he plays CB for his club (his real post is DM where he is marginally better) against Iranian clubs but Tosan burned him a bit more than what is perhaps usual even for Cheshmi.

 

Tuson is head and shoulders above anything Morocco has to offer upfront, and would most likely be a starter for Portugal.

 

Lol so a team that lacks a good striker will play defensivly? Where's the logic in that. Did you watch the last friendlies?

 

there's no way morocco would play like that , i mean we Don't even have the right materials for it , as herve henard didn't include "Azaro" the fastest striker among our options (egyptian league top scorer) , and " Ounajem " a very fast wing player (best player in moroccan league iMO ).
(Azaro)

(Ounajm)
this two players will be top priority choice if Herve renard want to rely on (defensive - countr-attacking style ).

 

Morocco played with 60% of its abilities (at most) in the Ukraine game just like most WC teams in these pre-WC friendlies. Do you really think Egypt would draw against Koweit or Portugal would draw against Tunisia at home in normal times? Lol.

We also played with an experimental formation which i hope we will never see again (3/5/2). Everyone was also afraid of getting injured, and playing in an empty Swiss stadium against a non WC team is the furthest thing from exciting.

It just cracks me up to hear random fans who have never seen Morocco play an official game post their predictions (including playing style predictions) based on their imaginary world. But hey this is the internet and anyone can say pretty much anything.

I don't even think there was a striking problem yesterday for Morocco. It was a boring slow paced game and our offensive players did well with the few random chances they had.

I personally have a lot of confidence in this Morocco team, and i think that once they start playing in the WC a lot of people will be jumping into the bandwagon as if this team came out of nowhere.

 

Man we need Nani_17 back and his legendary posts. Nani come back dude!!!!!!!

 

Iranian fans have the talent to make not only them but also some extern football followers to believe that Iran is equal or better than Morocco lol the joke would work in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain...but it seems to work quite good with some other people.

People talking about asian league players such as Taremi screwing Benatia and stuff, come on, be serious two seconds...Not saying it cannot happen, everything is possible in football, but don't write anything like this beforehand. No moroccan fan is writing that Ziyech would humiliate a portuguese or spanish defender, even if it's more likely to happen.

On the paper Iran is not better than a mid african team, just look at the squad of Cap Verde for example, they got a better starting XI than Iran if refering to the clubs the players play for.

I don't believe in the iranian defence, no matter what the fans can tell me about the style of playing, the fabulous run during the WC qualifiers...I just can't believe it's possible for iranian league defenders to hold the spanish and portuguese strikers.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...team-guide-tactics-key-players-carlos-queiroz

World Cup 2018: Guardian Experts' Network

Below are some excerpts from this article posted a few hours ago:

 

World Cup is just two weeks away, and everyone will see how bad or good Iran is. In the meanwhile, let me remind you that one of your “star” midfielders plays in the same “Asian Leagues” and was easily outplayed by a no-name Iranian youth player just a couple of weeks ago. So stop overrating your team and underrating Asia. Morroco would be the same level as Syria if it wasn’t for the all the Dutch, French, and Spanish national team products you have on your team.

 

Oh look. These bankers, too, were fooled by the Iranian fans and their scientific method simply overlooked the mighty Morocco!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...banks-ubs-england-germany-spain-a8355581.html

UBS is the first of the banks to reveal its predictions for the outcome of this year’s World Cup, which are calculated using econometric tools normally used to assess investment opportunities.

 

Most Iranian fans are good and respectful. It's just a few of them who like to provoke, and most of those who do are teenagers so no need to even respond when they act out.

 

CQ's list is a little controversial so I am not sure about our chance. I can see certain trends in his team's starting 11 vs Turkey and other recent friendly as testing bed for Iran's matches specially vs Morocco and Portugal.

Iran vs Tunisia and Iran vs Algeria to prepare the team for Morocco
Iran vs Turkey/Greece to prepare for Portugal

I believe he knows in last match we have to go for a win and defending with two CBs are not going to stop CR7. He is planning an all out attack scenario, score first goal and go bunker with 11 players. The team is pretty much ready for Morocco. The only thing scary is the match against Spain. If we concede too many goals, it will reduce any chances tremendously. After first match I can say if CQ has pulled the team together or he is clueless. One thing is clear, he is not going to repeat the same mistakes he did in last world cup packing the team with only defenders and leaving many attacking players.