A few points from the match - Dhurgham Ismail did really good. His speed the Taiwanese could handle and made dangerous runs up the pitch. - Faisal Jassim had a decent debut, defended his area well and played it out of defense decent. (How old is he?) - Yaser Kasim ran rings around their players even though he was manmarked by a few players at one time. - Ali Adnan showed glimpses of his club form but I dont think it works out for him at LM. - Salam Shaker did decent but he is too slow, we need a replacement for the future. - Younis did quite good, passing the ball around and a excellent freekick. - Mahdi Kamil did good at the start but near the end was pushed off quite easily - Ali Husni had really good dribbles and crosses. At times his passes were careless but nonetheless a good game for him. We should try him as a number #10 - Saad did a good job at defending today, playing as his usual self.
Glad we got the win, didn't care how we got it. Yes we only scored two but I don't think we were in any danger to concede. However against a better opposition, we wouldn't have won this match. Simple as that. I'm happy for Younis that he assisted and scored one (good free kick too). Even though I still want him dropped, it doesn't mean I want him to fail. His success is our success.
Kurdii110, when I read your comments you make it sound as if we played a wonderful game. We didn't. We were playing like shit against a opponent you would expect to trash. Alwan has disappointed me big time and I don't think he should continue with the NT. Just hand it over to Radhi Shnaishel and I'm sure we will improve.
As a team we played horrible, but there were some good highlights for individual players. Anyway we need a game plan, we don't have one ATM and we need a coach who has stability. We will end up rock bottom at this rate next round...
When you see Saudi Arabia beating East Timor 10-0, Iran beating Guam 6-0 and South Korea beating Laos 5-0 (all away from home), it's pretty depressing that we can only put 2 past Taiwan. Even in the first match we played them, it was 2-0 up until the final 10 mins and we ended up conceding too. Yahya Alwan is not the right coach to lead us forward. When you are relying on a 36 year old in every qualifying match to get you out of jail you know something is wrong. I'm afraid we will not be getting even anywhere near close to qualifying to a World Cup unless things change.
Alwan is not up to the job. He is afraid and it's projecting on the players. He is bothered by the critics and facebook comments. Based on the line up and his passivity during the game we can conclude that he is lacking in every department. Adnan is not doing anything as a LM. Even though we have 2 decent LB's, one of the two should be benched. Meram should start on the left. Salam Shaker is finished, we need a replacement asap. Faisal Jassim seems decent but can not be judged based on this game. However, i think that he is better than Sameh. Mahdi Kamil has been given multiple chances and every time there is one conclusion: he is not good enough for international football. Ali Husni is popular because he is one of the few players in the iraqi league who is creative. But he is not always effective and i would choose Yasin over him any day. My opintion about Younis is unchanged. He is slow and is frequently in an offside position. He has a bad first touch and Taiwan's goalkeeper was aware of this: every time a one on one situation occurred he simply got out of his goal to collect the ball.
Saw the second half of the game, here are my two cents. Horrible game that was far more difficult than it should have been. Younis was pretty good in it, but he was far too much on the offside and wasn't really all that threatening if you exclude the goal and assist. However, there is huge improvements after he joined a club. I still think Muhannad should start. He got in for a couple of minutes and one of his first touches was a shot. The guy is hungry and he really wants a regular spot at the NT, this is something we really need. Also he is faster, more physical, has better dribbling, more endurance/stamina and a more powerful shot than Younis. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Either play Ali Adnan as an inverted wing or play him as a left back, LB being the preferable position. If you put him on the left wing all he will be able to do is cross when played on the left wing. Our striker Younis will not beat two CB's in a head duel, whether they're from Taiwan, Vietnam or Thailand. And he will definitely not beat Irans/Australias/Japans/South Koreas CB's. I think Ali Adnan should play as a LB and Dhurgham as a defensive central midfielder or LM. Now for the wings, if Ahmed Yasin is uninjured, he should play. Probably our best active player. Fast feet, good shot, good dribbling and he loves to score. Scoring is something he has done consistently. Wouldn't surprise me if he has the bast score/minutes played ratio, which I think he has. Another thing to note is that he should also play as an inverted wing meaning on the left. Again if he plays on the right the angle would support crossing which he can do, but none of our players in the box will score unless they're lucky or the opposition has done a huge mistake. Now that he's injured though we should play Justin/Karrar/Hisni or Dhurgham/(Karrar/Justin)/Hisni. Hisni deserves to be a starter, he has been consistent, threatening, creative and convincing. I don't really know how Karrar is these days so I don't know how he stacks up against Justin. Saad Abdul Ameer was told to stay back and played the match as a CB, which is pathetic from our coach. Having said that the guy is amazing and I really think he's underrated. He played a very good game and he's far better at distributing the ball from defense to mid than our two other CB's. I wanted to say this. I'm disappointed in Yahya, he's far inferior to Akram Salman who at least made us beat Congo even if it's not their starter team many of them played in good European leagues. My preferred scenario is that we get Radhi Shnaishel, however I don't really have any faith in our FA and as such I think we'll be in a horrible situation against Thailand which will play ultra defensively. Getting out of this group will be much harder than anticipated due to the incompetence of our coaching staff. Edit: I forgot Faisal our new RB. He was actually pretty good, pretty quick and whenever the ball was lost on the right side he always rushed back which I like. He was pretty good both offensively and defensively and it was a good game for him. Having said that I'd like to see him versus a stronger team to be able to judge him properly. Edit2: I'm watching the first half, and I'm really missing Justin. The man is great for these games where we need to go through the defense. He's really good at that with his dribbling and he always creates lots of spaces. Having said that I'm actually fond of Mahdi Kamil as he probably has the best long pass accuracy and vision from all the Iraqi players, with the exception of Yaser. Mahdi is great at what he does but he should be used in games were we're relying on counters and speed. That's when a long pass and good vision is needed, not now when their team is in their own box.
The utter relief of Alwan says it all. What strikes me, is the reaction of the players and coach. This is not the first time that they have been complaining about (social) media. They are blaming everything on the fans and pressure. Everywhere in the world there is pressure from media and fans. If you can't handle that than you don't belong in the NT. If you can't cope with some idiots on Facebook who are cursing you than you don't belong in the NT. If i was the coach than i would forbid the players to check social media because it seems that they are really affected by all the comments. Players and coach should look in the mirror before attacking the fans and media, because the criticism of the latter two is completely justified.
The FA decided to keep Yahya Alwan. They said that changes will be made, leaving out old elements and including new elements. We have to leave out Salam Shaker and Younis Mahmoud from the old generation. Those two are clearly finished. Noor Sabri and Ali Rehema are playing well for their clubs and still have something to give for the NT, so for now I would keep them. I think we'll have no more NT games till February. All the focus will go to the Olympic team.
http://www.iraqfpg.com/Docs.ArabicViewer/2803e213-57c1-4e03-a7a0-1d539dd62c57/Default.aspx Coca Cola (sponsor of the NT) wants the home games to be transferred to Dubai. The FA refuses and wants to send an huge attendance to Teheran
http://www.iraqfpg.com/Docs.ArabicViewer/9e3a4b47-c4d1-4fa6-a977-8325a50bd85c/Default.aspx No friendlies prior to the Thailand and Vietnam games because of 'lack of FIFA days'. Well done FA. The blame is on them if we drop any points.
Anyone know if there is any chance for Radhi Shnaishel to take over? Any news or is the FA sticking with Yahya?
The huge attendance thing is getting old. They have to look for some new lies which they can use to fool the fans. They promised us a huge attendance in the previous game in Teheran and that was certainly not the case.
The attendance was about the same as what we usually get in UAE and much more than what we get in Qatar. The Asian Cup Qualifier that we won 3-1 against China in 2014 had about 5000 fans attending while the Taiwan game had about 4200 fans. Not a huge difference and I would argue that if we were facing a stronger opponent than Taiwan we'd have much more people making the effort to get to the game in Iran. Having said that, neither Iran, Qatar or UAE compare to the number of fans we get in Jordan. Our Asian Cup qualifier which we lost 2-0 to KSA brought 12,000 fans. Despite that I'd rather not have anything to do with Jordan, and my personal opinion is that playing in Iran is the best option so long as we have the ban on our games.
Why are we so sure everything will get better once Yahya is inevitably sacked? We've had loads of different managers already and besides a couple brief periods were we saw some progress, very little actually changes. Zico and Radhi are the only coaches who worked to improve the team and they were forced out. Zico got sick of the corruption and politics in the FA, while Radhi left and hasn't looked back so that he doesn't have to deal with the scumbags in the FA. We'll probably qualify to the next round and then we'll get whipped by the better teams we'll face in the next round, then Yahya will be sacked. After that we'll hire another yes-man for the FA and the cycle of mediocrity will continue. If the FA truly wanted the national team to succeed we'd have Radhi Shnaishel and Harris Mohammed in charge of the national team and I would also want to see Nashat Akram involved in the national team set-up as well. These men are very professional, they understand the national team's needs, and they know how to qualify for the world cup.
Bad news, very bad news. The team looked very organized under Radhi, something we've lacked since Zico's departure. The Thailand game will be very tough as they'll play ultra defensive football. As for your post IraqiLambo, I'm afraid that that's exactly what will happen. It's such a shame that incompetence will ruin the chances of this team. If we're struggling against Thailand and Vietnam then we can just forget Japan and Australia.
The issues around the national team are much bigger than we first thought. You have to see it this way: With our federation, we are always 1-0 behind. They lack in every department. From arranging friendlies to organizing training camps, issuing visas, everything is wrong. Alwan is known in Iraq as a good coach. However, the FA is holding him back and he is not the strong disciplined type like Radhi or Zico. The only solution for our NT in this state is to have a strong manager as head coach. Tactically he did well in his first games including the Thailand game (we dominated the whole game) but after all the critics from the media and fans, the guy simply lost confidence in the team. You can see the way how we played, how much it differs from the way we played in our first games against Lebanon and Taiwan. The question is not whether the coach is good enough, the question is whether the coach can work well within the FA's limitations.
The thing is, the moment he takes on the mission of being the NT manager he should shoulder all the responsibility. Our performance versus the Vietnam was just shameful and may even be the worst performance I've ever seen in the NT. We've all discussed reasons why our NT is doing so badly. Among them are playing players out of position (Ali Adnan), Not calling the better players (Mustafa Nadhim), Playing formations that does not suit us(442) and whether you agree that these reasons are valid or not I think we can all agree that we've taken huge steps back since the Asian cup. Having said that, there has been improvements in the last game. The main one is that it seemed to me that Yahya reduced the number of long balls and is relying more on short passes. Then again I only saw the second half so I can't really judge. I think there is a good chance that we do not qualify to the next round even though we're in the easiest group and the FA and Yahya will have to take responsibility if that happens.
I think we will qualify for the next round. We need at least 4 points from the next 2 games to qualify, and both Thailand and Vietnam were beatable last time we played them. The final round is starting in September 2016. Enough time to prepare this team for the final push. However, changes are needed now if we want to compete with the stronger teams. For now we have to let the coach continue, unless we can get Shnaishel.
The numbers you are talking about support my point of view. The attendance in Dubai is less than in Iran despite the fact that travelling to Iran is (supposedly) a lot easier due to less strict visa requirements and the distance. The FA presented Iran as our home venue with the promise that we'd have huge attendances during our games. This is not the case. Our FA wanted a proper stadium and got a stadium in bad condition. And don't tell me that the attendance was low because of the opposition. Iraqi's are found of their NT and if it was really that easy to go to Iran than sure more than 4200 fans would turn up. Not to mention the fact that the women who travelled all the way to Iran were refused entry in the stadium. I don't think that is the venue that we should strive for.
I am not enjoying our constant change of NT coaches but something has to be done . We have a coach that is not making sense tactically by playing players out of their position. Since he took over there have been problems in the NT which indicates that he doesn't have the personality that is needed. On top of that he wants to convince us that the opposition that we are facing in our group is tougher than Japan, Korea etc. There is something seriously wrong if you think that. We should sack the coach if we can get an upgrade (foreign coach/Shneishel).