Introduce WC-22 Teams Here: XI, Best Players, Strengths and Weaknesses

One of the main reasons fans put extra, and for the most part empirically unjustified, focus on clearly dated (occasionally ridiculously so) past World Cup achievements, and also market value of teams, is mainly due lack of familiarity with many of the teams that will play in a tournament. This lack of familiarity extends to even teams with some of the most famous stars and with some of the best historical records.

A team, like a chain, is generally as strong as its weakest link. Unless a coach is able to adopt tactics that cover those weakness adequately while accentuating the strengths of his squad, his team will not succeed regardless of how many famous players on his team. At the same time, besides this tactical element, the results in football are decided mostly by 4 factors: first and foremost, defensive errors. These errors can be as blatant as an unforced own goal; or a reckless challenge, or handball, in an otherwise largely harmless sequence of play resulting in a penalty; or they can be slightly more subtle, an errand back-pass, a defender slipping at the wrong time, a goalie mis-kicking the ball to an opponent etc. Second, goal efficiency from chances created either on the counter or, when an opponent coughs up the ball as a result of vigorous pressing upfront. Third, some extraordinary shot and such and, finally, from set plays. The other events and stats may sometimes influence the probability of these happening but they aren't the deciding factor.

When you introduce a side, I am particularly interested to know how they look based on the 4 factors I mentioned. But before any such detailed analysis is in order, we need some basic familiarity with these squads: typical and/or expected XI, best players, strengths and weakness as a team.

 

I start with Iran, but I like a more in depth introduction to teams you support or have in-depth familiarity with.

Porto's Mehdi Taremi (CF, LWF), Bayer Leverkusen's new signing from Zenit, Sardar Azmoun (CF), and Feyernord's Alireza Jahanbakhsh (RWA,R-AM) are Iran's best known players. When available, all 3 typically start for Iran, with Azmoun upfront either alongside Taremi, with Jahanbakhsh in midfield when Iran uses a 4-4-2 formation, or with Taremi and Jahanbakhsh on the left and right side of Azmoun when Iran uses a 4-3-3 formation. Among the 3, Azmoun is Iran's best finisher and MVP on the transfer-market, Taremi is Iran's best player overall who can basically do everything very well. Jahanbakhsh has a good shot, great talent springing excellent through balls, and a very good eye for the net. He is at his best as a wide forward upfront; as a midfielder, despite good skills, he turns over the ball more than one would like.

In midfield, Iran's most important players are Vahid Amiri (L-MF), who plays for Persepolis in Iran, and Saeed Ezatollahi (D-Mid) who recently joined a Qatari club after several years playing in different smaller leagues in Europe, last of them a Danish club. Ezatollahi's strength is his long ball distribution, his height and physique, and his shots which are good. Ezatollahi's work-rate and fitness (despite a relatively young age) however is merely average. Amiri, otoh, is all-around good player who helps the team through his tireless running and pressing, while occasionally showing his technical abilities. Amiri rarely scores but otherwise he is, besides Taremi, probably Iran's most influential player on the pitch. The other midfielder who gets the most minutes for Iran is Ahmad Nourollahi (D-mid/CM), who transferred from Persepolis to a club in the UAE last year. He is decent player and, at the Asian level, can be quite influential as well. He also has a good work rate and helps the defense, while the player some Iranian fans like to see start in his place, Brendford's Saman Ghodoos, does neither. Ghodoos, however, has a good shot and decent skills offensively. The problem Ghodoos faces is that offensively, Charleroi's (Belgium) attacking midfielder, Ali Gholizadeh, is overall better than Ghodoos while Iran's top 3 players (Taremi, Azmoun, Jahanbakhsh) crowd space for him upfront as well. When one or more of those players are injured or unavailable, Ghodoos does occasionally get the chance to start for Iran (e.g., our last 2 WCQ's when Azmoun wasn't available).

Iran's best central defender is Hossein Kanani (Kanani-zadegan), Persepolis defender who transferred to a Qatari club last year. Kanani right now faces internal disciplinary issues and a 2 match suspension as a result. Playing next to him in central defense, is his former Persepolis teammate Shoja Khalilzadeh who plays in Qatar right now. Khalilzadeh has all the skills and most of the necessary traits, but he is always one brain fart away from costing Iran a needless goal and his temper and tantrums can get Iran in trouble in other ways too, The good news for Iran is that Majid Hosseini, Iran's young WC-18 central defender, is in good form with his club in Turkey (Kayserispor) and is better defender than Khalalizadeh. The other good news is that Iran's other WC-18 central defender, a 29-year old veteran player, Morteza Pouraliganji is expected to be able to play in a couple months after missing the last year due to injury.

Iran's starting left fullback is Sepahan (Iran) player Omid Noorafkan. He is above average and Iran has plenty of players to back him up in this position, including the 2 AEK Athen's(Greece) left fullbacks who compete with one another and rotate in this post, the younger, speedier Milad Mohammadi (WC-18) or the more experienced, but much slower, Iranian captain Ehsan Haj Safi (WC14 & WC18). Besides those two, Iran also has Mohammad Naderi who moved from Esteghlal to Altay in Turkey last year, but Naderi for now isn't part of the roster.

Perhaps Skocic's most legitimately controversial decisions relate to Iran's right fullback position. While Dinamo Zagreb's Sadegh Moharami is a very good, technically gifted, (shy) player, and is Iran's typical starting RB, in this post it appears Iran's coach has tried to shield his former pupil at an Iranian 2nd division club, Malavan (Moharami later transferred to Persepolis on Skocic's recommendation to fellow Croat, then Persepolis coach, Branko Ivankovic, and then to Croatia thanks to Skocic) from serious competition. Some of Iran's best right fullbacks aren't being invited, including our WC-18 RB, Ramin Rezaian (Rezaian recently moved to Persepolis from Qatar at a financial loss just to be in better view for our World Cup roster). In practically the only thing Skocic has done that I fault him for, in interviews he has given, he has specifically mentioned that he won't invite Rezaian by name, without giving any reason. As it is, in this post Moharami's back ups are untested players who might or might not be able to carry the responsibilities that will be thrust upon them when Moharrami (who got a red card in our last WCQ against UAE and is unavailable against S.Korea) is unavailable.

Anyway, my wrap up should end with Iran's goalkeepers, the WC-18 veteran Alireza Beiranvand (Boavista, Portugal) and Amir Abedzadeh of Ponferradina in Liga 2 in Spain. These 2 bring very different strengths and weaknesses to the table, but I am fine with both. Abedzadeh can have a very bright future ahead of him. He is only 1.86 m tall, which is a few centimetres shorter than most top goalies and almost 10 cm shorter than Beiranvand, which ultimately is practically his only negative point.

 

This is real bummer for me: Majid Hosseini was subbed out in the 33rd minute of his club game due to injury. While the exact nature of the injury isn't clear, Kayserispor's coach has said the injury is "very serious" and they are waiting for MRI and test results. This is a huge blow if the injury turns out to be serious. Iran's central defense is already very depleted with injuries, suspensions, and other issues. We still have 8 months to the World Cup, but news like this just reminds me how much football rides on circumstances that are beyond anyone's control. I feel somewhat bad for our coach, Skocic, who knows that new guy who is now in charge of our federation used to be one of his critics and any adverse result or performance against S.Korea will become an excuse to get rid of him. Even the statement of support he issued today for Skocic raised more questions than it answered saying: for now, Skocic is the coach of the national team and, as such, enjoys his full support and the support of the IFF board.

 

I want to update my introduction to Iran's team which I posted here in light of injuries and other issues.

Porto won the league title with Taremi finishing the season with 20 goals and 12 assists. Leverkusen finished 3rd in the Bundesliga, qualifying for the UCL, with Azmoun scoring 1 goal and having 1 assist while starting in 3 straight games before featuring as a late sub in Leverkusen's last game of the season. Feyernoord have also clinched 3rd place in the Eredivisie, although until last week when Jahanbakhsh played 90 minutes for Feyernoord, he had been mostly relegated to the bench finiahing the season having been featured in the starting XI only 52% of the time.. Despite some overly critical fan reactions to some of Jahanbkhsh's performances, he had 4 goals and 3 assists for Feyernoord in the Eredivisie this season. He might get the chance to add to his tally in Feyernoord's last game of the season today. Feyernoord has also made the the final of the UEFA conference lesgue where they face Roma for the UECL title.

Vahid Amiri is currently injured and despite a very successful disc surgery, the earliest he may be expected to resume play is in August. Ezatollahi resumed recently from injury but showing very poor fitness despite featuring 90 minutes for his Qatari club in each of their AFC CL matches.

Either Ezatollahi is just picking up a paycheck in Qatar and is trying to avoid injury, or his fitness has dropped even below average or any acceptable level. The only thing I saw him do for his Qatari club besides walking on the pitch was his long ball distribution, which remained very good.
As for Amiri, I would be panicking a bit before his successful surgery as he was expected to lose 6 months of football.

Nourollahi still rates as I mentioned: a decent, but strictly Asian level, midfielder. Iran might need to recall its veteran midfielder, Omid Ebrahimi (still doing well in Qatar), to beef up its central midfield.

Just as Ghodoos showed some hustle and work-rate being used as right wingback for Brentford against Tottenham, he picked up yet another injury (the ankle is not supposed to be all that serious and hopefully he will be fine by the time we play Canada.

The good news in terms of CBs for Iran centers around Majid Hosseini, who scored a nice goal to help his club get past his former club, Trabzonspor, and make the final of the Turkish Cup. Otherwise, Iran is very thin in this department right now. Kanaani is as good as he has ever been, but I don't know if his 2 match internal disciplinary suspension (lifted under intense lobbying by our coach facing a slew of absent players against S.Korea and at the time said to now apply to Iran's first 2 friendlies after the qualifiers) has been quietly forgotten and set aside for good? If not, with Shoja Khalilzadeh injured (doubt he will recover in time for any June friendlies?) and Pouraliganji still not match fit after such a long absence, all the next best choices by Iran are also unavailable for various reasons. Two were drafted to serve their compulsory military service (Siavash Yazdani and Moradvand) with an Iranian military club but are basically in a public fight over the military's decision to deny them an exemption. One is injured (Cheshmi) and no one else looks any good.

By now, the fiasco created by Skocic's decisions in this post has become all too clear. The good news is some new potential answers have appeared too.

Since my message, Abedzadeh started and allowed a goal he shouldn't have, with confidence in him dipping among fans as a result despite 2 excellent saves in that game as well to partially redeem his blunder. But for now, most fans and our coach will feel more comfortable with the much experienced Beiranvand in goal.

 

An update and correction re my last post on Feyernood/Jahanbakhsh:
Correction: Feyenoord hasn't clinched 3rd and today wasn't the last match of the season at the Eredivisie. In fact, Feyernoord lost at home to 4th place Twente today and only 3 points separates them from that club with 2 Eridivisie games remaining..

As for Jahanbakhsh, he was subbed after 55 minutes today, with poor stats on duels and dribbles and a performance that is unlikely to make Feyenoord fans happy. But unless he loses his confidence, for Iran can still be a useful player for the things he does well. Never mind he isn't the player to shine in certain styles and tactical scripts.

 

My correction in the last post re Feyenoord needs to be deleted. I had it right in my initial post.

 

I like to revisit and update my earlier post from a couple months ago introducing Iran's lineup and system after Iran's first friendly against Algeria.

Algeria's first goal was scored from an errand back pass from Jahanbakhsh. Yet, Jahanbakhsh also scored Iran's goal and had several decent attempts at goal. My advice to Skocic: use Jahanbakhsh as a forward not midfielder, but instead of subbing out Azmoun to make room for Jahanbaksh, have Taremi drop back in midfield. Taremi's best position is upfront, but Iran's midfield needs him more.

Amiri has been recovering from surgery and won't be available until September. If Iran had started against Algeria with the only other Iranian midfielder with an acceptable work-rate, namely Omid Ebrahimi, Amiri's absence wouldn't hurt as much. But every midfield needs a work-horse and the veteran Ebrahimi, who was finally invited back to the national team after a long absence, was only brought in the 2nd half as a sub for Ezatollahi instead of playing alongside him. Ezatollahi's work-rate in the meantime is still at best average.

Nourollahi remains a a good Asian level player but Iran needs to find better players for this sector.

Ghodoos is injured but his last game where he picked up his injury, he did very well as a right wingback in a 5-3-2 formation used by Brentford against Tottenham. That should be some food for thought for Skocic and Iran.

Both were unavailable against Algeria and it showed. Kanaani will miss our next friendly too but will be available afterwards baring anything else happening. Khalalizadeh has been recovering from surgery but should be fine by the September window. He has moved in the meantime to the same Qatari club where Kanaani plays, pairing Iran's NT CBs at the club level too.

Majid Hosseini has done his part of the job in the absence of Kanaani and Khalilzadeh well enough. But you need a pair of decent CBs and our starting lineup against Algeria had our left FB, Noorafkan try to impersonate a CB and that didn't work well.

Skocic should have invited Pouraliganji to the national team camp, to start his acclimatization with the team and assess first hand his condition after a year of football due to injury. We need more depth in central defense (although the hitherto uncapped CB, Aghasi, looked promising when he subbed).

Omid Noorafkan did poorly as a CB and defensively, he was at fault for setting up the sequence that led to Algeria's 2nd goal. Offensively, as LB, he was useful in overlaps and assisted our goal. Hajsafi, who started as LB against Algeria, just doesn't have the speed for that position. Milad Mohammadi was unavailable against Algeria after his Covid test returned positive.

Nothing has changed here. Except I have come to trust that Esteghlal's Saleh Hardani is our best R-FB and deserves rto play. Skocic, however, continues to protect his pupil from competition. That said, Moharami was okay against Algeria.

Abedzadeh, coming on the heels of gifting S.Korea's first goal the last time he had started for Iran, had a nervous and mistake riddled first half against Algeria, although by the 2nd half he was fine and gave a better glimpse of what he can bring to the table. Still, Iran can't afford our goalie gifting goals to our opponents. He did it against S.Korea at the worst possible time and almost did the same and more against Algeria.