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PFDC - In a series of low quality football
games, Iran's U23 eventually ran out of luck, and lost to the well prepared
Qatar U23 in semi-final of Asian Games. While Iran struggled to defeated
third and forth rated Asian teams in group stage, nevertheless, the loss to
Qatar was the only defeat for this team. Through luck or not, Iran defeated
China's U21 and Korea Republic in quarter-final and third-place matches
respectively, to secure the third place with 5-1 record, two of which had
ended in a draw in regular time.
Rene Simoes; Quality Coach or Not?
Iran entered this Asian Games with poor preparations, and went through a
roller-coaster of getting banned and un-banned few days before the beginning
of the tournament. While such matters could partly justify Iran's poor show
of football, nevertheless, there were many matters that could point to
Simoes' failure to display quality coaching.
Obviously, coaching is not just about training the players. What
distinguishes the better coaches than the rest is their intelligence, their
real-time decision making, their ability to draw plan and possibly re-draw
quickly, and make adjustments during a match or a tournament if needed. In
terms of national teams, it is also their ability to select the players,
according to their plan.
Players Selection
In Asian Games, each team is allowed to use three players over the age of 23
while the rest of the squad must be under 23. This gives the opportunity to
each team to bring in a few experienced and football-wise mature players to
lead the team while increasing the level of the game. Simoes selection of
Iran's three over 23 players did not match any of the above category.
Instead of increasing the team's confidence, two of them were the center of
Iran's troubling area, and the other one, while having the talent, had no
experience to be qualified as an "elite" member.
Iran's goal keeper, Hassan Roudbarian, who is not even an average keeper in
international standard, had taken the defense' confidence and focus away
with his errors. Arash Borhani, despite scoring a few goals for Iran, had
paired with Mehrdad Oladi to create fiasco up front with immature and
stubborn behaviors while not even being his complimentary match. Jalal
Hosseini, while being a hard working player, could not use his "potential
talent" to make up for his lack of experience and his lack of speed, and the
defensive line was shaky throughout the tournament. All in all, neither one
of them could make impact on any of Iran's matches with their game or
experience.
Just before Asian Games, Simoes took a set of selectees to Brazil to play a
few friendlies. Upon return, four of those players were taken out of the
list due to age discrepancy. Simoes stated in many interviews that players
like Akbarpour and Madanchi were important part of his game plan for the
Asian Games, and their exclusion in last minute hurt the team. The question
remains as to why he didn't take them to the tournament as the over 23
players if they were so important to his plans (and therefore part of the
reason for Iran's failure), and instead, called up Borhani from UAE that had
not trained with this team and was certainly not a complementary player to
yet another "non-target" player, Oladi.
Why a more experienced defender such as Nosrati was not selected in place of
the inexperienced Hosseini that was using this tournament as his experience
stage. Why an over 23 player was being used in an under 23 tournament to
gain experience?
What was distinguishing between Iran's former U17 and U19 goal keeper,
Alireza Haghigh, and an average keeper like Roudbarian? The experience?
Would an experienced keeper dribble a speedy player approaching him outside
the box with no one behind him? And, repeat that again and again despite
getting scored on?! Iran could have used the third spot for an "impact type"
player from IPL (or even UAE league) in place of Roudbarian, and allow
Haghighi to gain playing time and experience to get ready for Olympic
qualifiers.
Planning and Real-time Decision Making
After the first match, it was clear that Iran is hurting in many positions.
The forward combination was ineffective. Midfield needed a play maker. The
linear defensive formation was not working. Why no changes in the line up
for the second game, and get ready sooner for tougher stage? Instead, Iran
used the exact same line up for the second match. It was during the third
and forth matches that changes were made to such obvious shortcomings. A
delayed response to needed adjustments left Iran struggling to find the
right line up all the way to the last match against Korea!
Iran had plenty of time to get ready for Qatar match. Had four games in
hand, and plenty of opportunities to analyze Qatar. What was the game plan
to neutralize players like Yaser Abdulrahman, former Manchester City
invitee, and Uruguan sensation, Sebastian Quintana, that were freely moving
through our defense, with and without the ball, and at all times? What
adjustments were made in half time to neutralize them in second half? The
answer is of course none that was effective! Iran did not enter the match
with proper game plan, and never adjusted to re-take the game that was
destined to lose with such weak planning.
Other Guilty Parties!
While reviewing Simoes' work, we should not forget the role others played in
this relative failure. IFF previous administration were wrong about brining
Brazilian coaches to change Iran's game for better. None of them in youth
level succeeded, and none of the teams had any quality football to offer.
Such sudden change of direction only hurt Iran's youth teams, and they all
failed in their corresponding tournaments.
IFF's current administration also continued to show how incapable they are
in terms of management and organization. This coach and this team never had
the proper support in terms of preparation and the availability of the
players. While the attention was given to Iran's national team to qualify
for Asian Cup, Iran's U23 team always came second to their planning.
In addition, their failure to understand FIFA's warning and to response in
timely manner led to temporary suspension of Iran's football. This rude
awakening news kept this young U23 team uncertain in last few days whethere
to be able to participate in Asian Games.
Last Words
If the Asian Games did not have any positive input in terms of preparing the
Olympic team for upcoming qualifiers, as most of the players will not be
eligible, it did prove that Iran should not count on Rene Simoes to qualify
Iran to the next Olympic after 32 years. Iran's U23 team is in badly need of
a high quality coach that can re-build the team from the scratch, and the
time is of essence as the Olympic qualifiers are around the corner.
Posted By: Mansoor Ansari
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