Hossein Kanaani, Iran's centerback who plays his club soccer in the Qatari league, has dimes up his sleeve pic.twitter.com/dIRWxP2RR6— scuffed (@scuffedpod) April 8, 2022
From the video clips, it looks like Iran has a lot of high quality players, capable of moments of brilliance. I think one of big questions will be what impact the McKennie, Musah and Adam midfield will have on the game. If the USA doesn’t control them midfield, it appears Iran will get some clear opportunities on goal. Iran Monitor - how familiar are you with the above players? They’re generally dominant athletes (fast, disruptive) but the creative and incisive passing isn’t what it could be. How would they match up against the Iranian midfield?
While 8 months to go before the World Cup its hard to speculate how things will be then, much less by M3, in general I feel the US central midfield is stronger than Iran's central midfield. Besides that, tactically Iran is less prone to a high press and might end up being outnumbered in midfield as well. The issue is how urgent will each side feel when it comes to scoring? And what tactics they use? A US desperate to score and pressing vigorously in Iran's end of the field, will probably find itself exposed in the back while likely being reduced to half chances. Conversely, the reverse situation will probably favor the US as Iran's midfield will probably not be able to dominate and, losing possession, can find its defense exposed. In a more balanced posture tactically, I think both sides will get their chances: the US by doing better from midfield. Iran by doing better and being more dangerous upfront.
Great analysis. As you’ve probably gathered, we are not strong up top at the forward position. We’re pretty desperate to find a forward who can put the ball in the back of the net.
he's got a good channel, I would listen to him on 11 yanks too after every qualifier. pretty cool that he's connecting with other podcasters doing the same thing that we're doing here in this thread!
I took my Iranian Father to the USMNT 1994 World Cup Training Group and gave him a sign that said we're going to the Qatar World Cup to see USA vs. Iran! ♡
I like to revisit and update my earlier post from a couple months ago introducing Iran's lineup and system. 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. 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.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/sports/2022/09/06/report-queiroz-set-to-return-as-iran-coach/26711 They are saying Carlos Queiroz is returning as Iran's Coach. This group just got very interesting.
Iran won the Asian Games in 1990 and 1998. Actually 2002 as well but starting that year it was a U23 tournament as opposed to full national teams.
Mehdi Taremi (Porto), Sardar Azmoun (Leverkusen) and Alireza Jahanbakhsh (Feyenoord) are the three main Iranian attackers. Taremi is particularly potent with 2 goals in 3 games for Porto this season. Karim Ansarifard is old, but still a threat. If you will, Taremi is the Iranian Ferreira. Jahanbakhsh is the Iranian Weah. Azmoun is the Iranian Pulisic.
Here's a very detailed team preview of Iran for the World Cup - with an enormous section of the preview discussing how the current political situation in Iran will impact the team. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/ycamtx/team_preview_iran_2022_world_cup_532/
Oh man, there’s some seriously tasty smack I could throw down on Iran, but I will refrain. I do not underestimate Iran, but I am hopeful we will open up a can on that like we did Morocco.