One day later...We can look back

[Babak G]

We can look back and say this point was valuable,at the end of the group having this point will make a big difference.

The golden rule in this group will win winning your home games.Bahrain couldnt beat us,so they are at a little disadvantage now.We have yet to play at home.

Secondly,we played poorly,but we will get better.Our team was attacking in the lineup but we became satisfied with 1 point from the second half onwards.
Bahrain is much much better than some of you actually thought/think.

Finally,Ali Karimi has been out of shape and form for 4 months now,as I and some others have said.Some of you think he is taking it easy in Dubai but that anytime he puts the Iran jersey he can move up 4 gears.It doesnt work that way.He looks completely out of shape,his body looks too heavy.

Branko,hmm,I think he was going for a win,but not at all costs and was more interested in not losing.So the priority was not losing,but try to win.Second half we pulled back completely.Even if we were going for a draw,our players were still poor,too many misplaced passes,unneccessary dribbles by Karimi,losing the ball,etc from all others.

Thank God Yahya,and Rahman were solid today,esp Yahya.

 

[keyvan_pars]

one day later and hanooz reedeem.

we were lucky to get away with the single point. If they had their star player it would definitely have been 1-0 or 2-0 to bahrain.

 

[Babak G]

Well they didnt.

They didnt do enough to win.
A draw was fair,but they were the better team for sure.No doubt.

 

[dariush-44]

Luck was definently on our side today, I am actually pretty happy we got this one point, I can't imagine losing!! On the other hand none of top asian teams seemed to do good today, Japan was tied up with DPR Korea till 90th minute in their home field. So I'm guessing since it's the first games and automatically pressure goes up many things could go wrong, we should be expecting to see a much strong TM against Japan.

 

[GharibehAshena]

Thank God Yahya,and Rahman were solid today,esp Yahya.

Fair enough.

 

[farid]

Didn't they put like 2 or 3 guys on karimi?? what you want him to do? lol.. i still say, daei is NOT a 90 min man.. he should've been out of the game by halftime or maybe 60 min!

 

[Niloufar]

yeah we definetly got lucky today!
but we r understimating Japan so much. Neither we are N.Korea nor Japan is similar to Bahrain.
Dont wanna be a party pooper here but it`ll be a miracle if he win our game vs Japan in Azadi.

 

[Babak G]

Niloufar,I dont think we HAVE to win against Japan at home.

A draw may not be the worst result,as long as we dont mess up against NK and Bahrain.

 

[Niloufar]

well,in best scenario case(realistically) we can get 2 points from Japan(home and away), 2 wins from N.Korea = 8 points. so unless we DEFEAT Bahrain,we can go through..
Other than that most prob Bahrain will have higher points than us(bc they can cause problem for Japan).

 

[Babak G]

Hmm...

I think if we get one point off Japan,and win the other 3 games,we are through.

So we need 10 more points from 5 games.

Bahrain can lose points to NK,it wont be easy for them.
Bahrain are not good travelers in general.

 

[eerooni]

A win would have been great, but a draw WAY is just as good, TM looked disorganized for many reasons but at the end of the day, if we want to go to World Cup we shouldnt LOSE and last night we didnt, TM has the better pedigree and this will show in upcoming games with North Korea and Japan, Bahrain at best can hope to draw home games and try her best not to lose away games( which would be very difficult for them) all in all I think TM had a good day(worst case TM could have lost!) so stelaing 2 points from Bahrain away is IMO a good result.

TM just has to train a little better because come march 30th Japan are no pushovers and for them it makes no difference playing in front of 100,000 people home or away. TM needs to win the next game and then the situation wil look better for us , beacuase I cannot imagine Bahrain winning in Pyong yang, or Tokyo or Tehran.

 

[halftime]

We need to win our next game. And we need to play much better than yesterday to beat Japan. You can't expect to lose points at home and still qualify.

Japan will be happy with a point. The pressure will be on us to break them down. Japan is a much tougher opposition than Bahrain, we need to raise our game and have a proper game plan to create goal scoring opportunities.

People talk about “Branko went for a draw “, I don’t think so. He had a very attack minded team on the park, but we failed to create a single goal scoring opportunity. Even if he was happy with a draw, you still set out your team to create chances and hope that strikers will take one or two of those chances. I think Branko was hoping some piece of magic from Karimi or Kia or Hashemian or Daie will win the game for him and he did not have a clear game plan. Bahrain were very good. They had a game plan and they stuck to it. As soon as any of the above mentioned players got near the ball they had two or three players on them and they knew there will be no movements coming from else where in the park. We didn’t even test Bahrain’s defence. Apart from one 50 or 60 yard pass from Zandi, picking up Daie’s run; they didn’t have to do anything. The point is we can do much better than that, we have a lot of flair in our team, we need to organize and make sure we play as a team.

Go Iran

 

[Babak G]

I dont think Japan will be MUCH tougher than Bahrain.
All three teams are on similar levels,with not much difference on their day.They can all beat each other for sure.

I dont think a draw will be the worst result against Japan.
I think with with 3 wins and 2 draws,we will qualify.
But if we draw,then we have to win the next 3 games,which is easier to talk than to do.

 

[Agha Sepehr]

After a day we can look back and say that Team Melli played horrible.
and was lucky that their star striker Hubail was supended and that they still were more dangerous and should have won, that is what you can say after a day two days and so on ............