"The most skillful team in Asia has not always been the most successful"

Do you think your NT from the 70's is better than the NT that went to WC'98? Or which generation had Iran's best NT?

 

All our players need is organization. Also like everyone knows already Iranians have to stop emphazing on scoring goals. THats all we care about, but we need to find at least two amazing defenders. Dude if we have defenders in Iran who defended guys like daei, karimi etc... They should be at least decent, south korea and germany are known for their defensive style and yet karimi made them look bad. So, their has to be at least on or two really skilled defenders. Like Brazil they have Ronaldo, Gaucho, Kaka, Adriano etc..., but they also have R. Carlos (a little overated defensively but still is extremely talented) and Cafu. These two are great defensive players. THen they have decent players like lucio and roque junior. I think if Zandi can really play defensive and Ali Raezi could organize the defense it would be key to us getting far. So, many times balls get into the 20 that dont in crappy NT, but the way we deal with it is we have a lot of talent which overcomes our poor organization.

We really need organization we sometimes have forced everything through karimi and mahdavikia that the team keeps giving them the ball, but in the end of a game they seem to make less runs to support them.

* I cant wait til WC2006 i want to the world to see that Iran is more than just a "terrorist" country. I especially want everyone to see Karimi show his greatness cauz nobody could believe that there is a such player from that country. Karimi will be big after WC2006, if i were to own a soccer shop i would get thousands of his NT jerseys.

 

It's a pretty well agreed upon opinion.
Iran has the better individuals.
But organization and discipline lets them down

 

right now we have the best team we ever had. we just need to use it properly.

 

You forgot to add lack of money. Iranians do not have $1,000,000 to schedule firendlies against top teams the way USA did. USA paid up to $7,000,000 to face Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Ireland before WC2002! You would never see that situation happen in Iran for a long time.

 

hi all, i'm not an Iran supporter, but I do try to follow TM's games when I have access, as they are an obvious powerhouse in the asia scene with lots of interesting characters on the team. I saw the Bahrain game (I know, this was ages ago, but it just occurred to me to post my questions here now), and was surprised to see how sluggish everyone looked. Was this a function of the logistical problems (having only a short time with all the players training together)? The ground looked pretty bad, and I noticed other posts mentioning this... Anyway, I was wondering how the players commented on the game afterwards -- were they pretty even about it? irritated? satisfied?

Also had a question about the new guy Zandi... How is his chemistry with the rest of the team (personality wise and play wise)? Is this the first time a player has been "nationalized" (if that's the right word...) like this for the IranNT?

Is Brankovic looking to change the makeup of the NT for the next game? fresher players? etc.

sorry if my questions are so basic, but would be grateful for any of your posts... thanx!

 

The players of Iran said the biggest reason for the bad performance was the pitch. Also Javad Nekounam who was one of the best players on the field said exactly the same thing. About Zandi he isn't really "nationalized" he had the choice between Iran and Germany since his father is Iranian and he as a German mother. Well he chose for Iran but it took months time for FIFA to change his nationality and allow him to play for Iran. I don't know if this is the first time such thing happened in Iran but I haven't seen anything like this in Iran before. I think this things could happen more because after the Iranian revolution a lot Iranian people went to other countries in Europe or in North America. Some of them have got some childs who can play real good soccer like Zandi.
Well I think the line-up of the Iran-Japan is going to change a little bit because of Nikbakht Vahedi who is ready for that game. The players will also have more training with each other this time (5 days instead of 2 days).

 

thanks for the reply Xevor! I hear ya about the bad pitch... it looked pretty awful. I can only hope that the pitch condition is better for the Iran-Japan game, as both teams have high quality players, and a bad pitch just means a bad game for both.

 

Well the game against Japan is in Teheran and the pitch there is much better than the pitch of Manama. If you watched Iran - Germany you could have seen that.

 

wow, the stadium looks great in the photos -- and the fountain/pond thing outside is pretty cool. thanks for the pics Mani, Xevor!

 

sorry, one more question! is it true that azadi is located at a high altitude? is it enough to influence breathing for the players? i also hear that it has a capacity of 100 thou -- wow, that's big! tho I can imagine for a WC qualifier, there's no problem filling all the seats!

 

Doesn't Azadi have some sort of record for being the loudest or something like that?

 

lol, and we all annoy the hell out of each other...!

 

So who here has been to azadi? Isn't it too hard to see the action if you're in the nosebleed section?

 

I've been there a lot times since I was a little kid (I used to go with my brothers and cousins)... my dad was always against it because it will get so ghetto especially during the Perspolis' (one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Iran from Tehran) games.... I don't know why but when you go there even if you sit furthest from the pitch you still feel the heat of the game... probably it's the atmosphere that 120,000 ppl create…. I remember once (I was 6-7 yo) I missed a goal because these guys in front of me were standing. I cried the whole game therefore missed two more goals... well I haven't been back for 3 years now and I heard they did a lot of renovations so the things only can get better....

 

Awwww, what a cute story! Too bad someone couldn't hold you up on their shoulders. Is there a monitor now that lets you see instant replays and stuff like that?

Oh yeah and I was thinking, have any Arab refs made questionable calls aginst TM, when they're surrounded by 100,000 angry fans?

 

This summer im goin to Iran and im gonna make sure i see the friendlies on the 3rd and 8th of June at Azadi if they play there all the time. Any suggestions on what i should or shouldnt do.