I want to take a look back at today's game, what positives/negatives
there were, and what we learned from the experience. PLEASE! If you
want to gripe or make emotional remarks, there are tons of other threads
for you. Here, I want to look at facts and analysis. Please watch the game
again, keep your emotions out, learn something from it, and then contribute.
Before the game, on some thread, I posted my thoughts on how we should
approach this game, or rather how I thought Branco would approach this
game. To me Branco's strategy was clear and no surprise. He wanted to
play with a very defensive posture until the last 20-25 minutes, make some
changes then to give us more attacking posture, and try to snatch a win,
while being content with a draw if it turned out that way. As it turned out,
that's exactly how our team played; A very cautious, defensive game.
We got the least result we aimed for. In that respect, we
succeeded in achieving our goal.
What is disturbing to me, however, is the way we achieved our goal.
Failed tactic #1: If you watch the game again, contrary to what most
of us would have thought (using our right side), our midfielders were intent
on sending balls to Hashemian on the left side to develope our attacks.
Mohammad Hubail, Bahrain's right mid, is a key player in Bahrain's attacks.
What our players had been instructed to do was to use the space emptied
by Hubail's runs upfield to our advantage to create opportunities for us.
This tactic never worked for two reasons: a) Hashemian is NOT a winger.
He neither has the skills nor the speed to fulfill this purpose. b) Mohammad
Hubail is a fast player who can recover quickly and run back to fill his
emptied position. There is nothing you can do about Hubail's speed and
ability to recover, but we could have still used Hubail's emptied space
if we had used the right person, or rather the right formation and lineup.
I think you all know I have tremendous respect for what Ali Daei has done
for our football. However, IMO Daei was invisible in this game. Hashemian
was doing his best, but he was in a no-win situation because of the way
he was being used. One way we could have (and should have) taken
advantage of this would have been to take Daei out, move Hashemian
upfront, and bring in a player like Kazemian who can play well on both the
right and left side, has speed, decent dribbling ability, and excellent
passing ability. We could have even had more success had we changed
Karimi and Hashemian's positions.
FAILED TACTIC #2: It wasn't that we weren't trying to use our right
side. Only that Bahrain did such a great job to neutralize it. Our failure
on the right side was compounded by playing Ka'bi
in right D. Ka'bi had clearly been instructed not to leave his position much
to participate in our attacks, but since he is not a pure defender, Kia had
no choice but to move back to help him. Had we employed a defender with
better defensive abilities, Kia would have been freed up more to help
out with our attacks. As it was, with Kia and Ka'bi both pinned down
by defensive responsibilities, our attacking right side was completely
ineffective, with only Karimi to rely on who was double and triple covered,
making him useless too.
Failed tactic #3: While on the paper, we appear to have done great on
defense, it came at a cost. Our defence and defensive mids were instructed
not to move too far up, fearing Bahrain's deadly counters from the wings.
Even Nekoonam and Zandi hardly ever moved up past Bahrain's defensive 1/3!
But this goes against our natural abilities. Our players were doing what
they were told, but that put them in a very unfamiliar territory. With our
players staying back, there was a huge gap between our defenders and
attackers, essentially giving up the whole midfield to Bahrain, and making
it even more difficult for us to put together any sort of attack.
There may be other reasons for our failures that I hoper others will point
out. My conclusion is this: While I don't have an issue with playing
defensively to gain points from this game, I think we did it the wrong way.
a) Instead of pulling everyone back defending, we could have started
our defence in Bahrain's defensive 1/3, playing a pressing game all the
way from front to back.
b) Branko's formation and/or lineup was wrong for his tactics. If he
didn't know it BEFORE the game started, it became painfully obvious 20
minutes into the game. He should have shown courage to make the
necessary changes. I don't dislike Branko, but I'm getting quite frustrated
with his stubbornness to use "big-name" players + his 4-2-3-1.
Something's got to give here, or this stubbornness could cost us!
c) once again, I have to critisize Daei's presence in this game. I don't
have an issue with Daei playing, but it's got to make sense. Not only was
Daei ineffective in this game, but his presence made other players ineffective
as well.
Now, feel free to add your input guys!
there were, and what we learned from the experience. PLEASE! If you
want to gripe or make emotional remarks, there are tons of other threads
for you. Here, I want to look at facts and analysis. Please watch the game
again, keep your emotions out, learn something from it, and then contribute.
Before the game, on some thread, I posted my thoughts on how we should
approach this game, or rather how I thought Branco would approach this
game. To me Branco's strategy was clear and no surprise. He wanted to
play with a very defensive posture until the last 20-25 minutes, make some
changes then to give us more attacking posture, and try to snatch a win,
while being content with a draw if it turned out that way. As it turned out,
that's exactly how our team played; A very cautious, defensive game.
We got the least result we aimed for. In that respect, we
succeeded in achieving our goal.
What is disturbing to me, however, is the way we achieved our goal.
Failed tactic #1: If you watch the game again, contrary to what most
of us would have thought (using our right side), our midfielders were intent
on sending balls to Hashemian on the left side to develope our attacks.
Mohammad Hubail, Bahrain's right mid, is a key player in Bahrain's attacks.
What our players had been instructed to do was to use the space emptied
by Hubail's runs upfield to our advantage to create opportunities for us.
This tactic never worked for two reasons: a) Hashemian is NOT a winger.
He neither has the skills nor the speed to fulfill this purpose. b) Mohammad
Hubail is a fast player who can recover quickly and run back to fill his
emptied position. There is nothing you can do about Hubail's speed and
ability to recover, but we could have still used Hubail's emptied space
if we had used the right person, or rather the right formation and lineup.
I think you all know I have tremendous respect for what Ali Daei has done
for our football. However, IMO Daei was invisible in this game. Hashemian
was doing his best, but he was in a no-win situation because of the way
he was being used. One way we could have (and should have) taken
advantage of this would have been to take Daei out, move Hashemian
upfront, and bring in a player like Kazemian who can play well on both the
right and left side, has speed, decent dribbling ability, and excellent
passing ability. We could have even had more success had we changed
Karimi and Hashemian's positions.
FAILED TACTIC #2: It wasn't that we weren't trying to use our right
side. Only that Bahrain did such a great job to neutralize it. Our failure
on the right side was compounded by playing Ka'bi
in right D. Ka'bi had clearly been instructed not to leave his position much
to participate in our attacks, but since he is not a pure defender, Kia had
no choice but to move back to help him. Had we employed a defender with
better defensive abilities, Kia would have been freed up more to help
out with our attacks. As it was, with Kia and Ka'bi both pinned down
by defensive responsibilities, our attacking right side was completely
ineffective, with only Karimi to rely on who was double and triple covered,
making him useless too.
Failed tactic #3: While on the paper, we appear to have done great on
defense, it came at a cost. Our defence and defensive mids were instructed
not to move too far up, fearing Bahrain's deadly counters from the wings.
Even Nekoonam and Zandi hardly ever moved up past Bahrain's defensive 1/3!
But this goes against our natural abilities. Our players were doing what
they were told, but that put them in a very unfamiliar territory. With our
players staying back, there was a huge gap between our defenders and
attackers, essentially giving up the whole midfield to Bahrain, and making
it even more difficult for us to put together any sort of attack.
There may be other reasons for our failures that I hoper others will point
out. My conclusion is this: While I don't have an issue with playing
defensively to gain points from this game, I think we did it the wrong way.
a) Instead of pulling everyone back defending, we could have started
our defence in Bahrain's defensive 1/3, playing a pressing game all the
way from front to back.
b) Branko's formation and/or lineup was wrong for his tactics. If he
didn't know it BEFORE the game started, it became painfully obvious 20
minutes into the game. He should have shown courage to make the
necessary changes. I don't dislike Branko, but I'm getting quite frustrated
with his stubbornness to use "big-name" players + his 4-2-3-1.
Something's got to give here, or this stubbornness could cost us!
c) once again, I have to critisize Daei's presence in this game. I don't
have an issue with Daei playing, but it's got to make sense. Not only was
Daei ineffective in this game, but his presence made other players ineffective
as well.
Now, feel free to add your input guys!
