Carlos Quieroz began his and our Team Melli’s World Cup
campaign with a sound victory over the minnows of the group, Indonesia. The
scoreline of 3-0 was attractive enough for the general fan, as it was also
important to start the games with a confidence boosting victory. However, the
way the team played left much to be desired. Despite the overall team
performance showed signs of improvement in some periods of the game, but the
overall quality of the team was nothing to write home about.
Next was the away game to Qatar. Had anyone proposed an away
scoreline of 1-1 prior to the game, I’m sure many fans would have taken it.
However the sheer number of chances created up front for our strikers and
especially the three golden chances for Karim Ansarifard, all of which he
scoffed with rather meek and lackluster shots that resembled mere passes to the
opposition keeper, left me wondering what if we had a more competent selection
and staring line up. We could have easily taken the game and perhaps finished
handsomely by 2-3 goals margin. But Qatar got away with a draw and we hopefully
will not reach a position to rue all those wasted opportunities. The hosts’
goal was a very soft one where they exploited the confusion created in the
middle of our defense and slotted a goal to salvage a point for them. One cant
and shouldn’t blame the loss of two points on the young Ansarifard and despite
the knee jerk reactions of some fans, I still believe he has enough talent to
remain in our overall squad. However, he can certainly work on his final shots
and not try to insist too much on a silky touch or tap-in. Sometimes a little
power is what the doctor prescribes.
Speaking of player selection and starting line up, I have a
bone to pick with our new coach. Either it is is untimely vacation at the
beginning of the league season that deprived him of keeping an eye on the
in-form players or perhaps his reliance on his Iranian assistants to pick the
right players that ended up with a roster that included a few our of form
players, one or two of whom actually found their way into the starting line up
as well!! Gholamreza Rezaei is a talented player with good amount of pace to
create trouble for almost any Asian team’s defense. But in recent months he
hasn’t been in form and that productive. Yes he still makes fast runs up and
down and zig-zags to the middle with the same pace. But all these moves show no
real purpose or design and at times they
even hinder the team’s attack. And yet, we see him not only picked for
these games, he was also put in the starting line up. I can strongly say he was
one of the weakest players in the first match with long periods of absence in
the game until he was subbed (too late in my opinion) near the end of the game.
And despite this weak performance, he was yet again in the next game’s starting
line up and stayed on while more productive players like Khalatbari and Karimi
were subbed out!
At the same time, the absence or neglect of the league’s top
goal scorer, Reza Nowroozi of Foulad in any of Quieroz’s rosters (no matter how
many he calls up) is something of an enigma. Surely in a 30+ man squad
with a handful of out of form players
there is room for the league’s top scorer. That’s what any sensible, logical
person would think. And yet … .
With the Bahrain game looming one can only hope with more
serious outlook towards the league players and hopefully with more coordination
among the players with some sound strategies, we should be able to get the 3
points and put some distance between ourselves and the rest of the group.
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