I ask you guys to go watch the video of the goal starting with the pass in depth by Ezzatollahi to Jahan Bakhsh, and then his pass to Rezaiian that did the assist to Azmoun. The whole play looks like a beauty coming from deep in Iran side right to Korean goal in a matter of seconds. It was a true beauty. Ezzatollahi definitely has a vision for the in-depth pass.
Thank you doost e khoob I know Azmoun scored and I thought it was Rezaiian who passed it but I forgot Ezzatollahi to Jahan Baksh was there(that is why I needed to watch the tape). what I saw was COHESIVE TEAMWORK on that goal, not individuals trying to out dribble their opponents. That was the OLD IRAN team, a couple of guys would do most of the damage be it either Ali Daei, Mehdi Madavakia or Azizi(back in the day) later on Karimi. Now we do not have that aspect of the game so you lose some individual creativity but what you GAIN is a TEAM that is built for overall, long term success.
If you asked me in 98- to even 2014, could we make it to the 2nd round, even if we were in a favorable group, I would say NO. Now if you ask me that question I would answer, "We have as good as a chance as any other decent team to make it to the knockout stages." Why? It is simple we are now officially TEAM MELI back then we were INDIVIDUAL MELLI AKA TEAM MELI. There is a big difference between the two mentalities my old friend. Then I discussed the defensive aspect of the game in the previous post but that goal was a TEAM effort. YES Azmoun finished but the other 3 guys helped and the overall TEAM SPEED improved. As BT pointed out we were in GOOD POSITION on D and I say have the players now AND COACH to play at a European style/caliber.
Also, we had plenty of foreign coaches who were good at strategy, look at Cira Belosivich(before Bronko) but I say CQ is even better than him because CO gets the most out of his players . He understands the psychology of the guys. Like we say in America "It is not about the x's and o's it is about the Jimmy's and Joes." in our case it is not about the x's and o's it is about the Hossein's and Hassan's haha.
Like Babr(i pointed this out in another post) I liked the fact that after we scored the first goal, we CONTINUED TO ATTACK. We did not sit on it, and play anti football, time wasting, grass rolling aka ARAB FOOTBALL. That is the difference between us and the Arab teams. If THEY were up 1-0 they would have time wasted and probably would have been content with a 1-1 draw. The ONLY Arab team I see play the right way is UAE. IF UAE is tied 1-1 or 1-1 they will go for the win and if they are up 1-0 they will not resort to anti football tactics.
