Iran draws with Qatar at the expense of our nerves and hair(?)
Our past experience with a single forward formation hasn’t been exactly flattering. Therefore leaving Ansarifard alone up there was quite worrying. Why such defensive posture and caution? This was a home game with a 100,000 screaming fans against the tired legs of a freshly beaten team. We were wondering about Quieroz’s game-plans when the game started and we started aggressively, putting pressure on the opponents. However, after the first 10-15 minutes of good pressure, we slowly settled into a pattern of Qatar staying back and defending in mass with only one or sometimes, two players hovering around the midline and with us basing most of our attacks from the flanks with decent pairing of Heidari-Mahini on the right and Hajsafi-Pouladi on the left. Crosses coming with rapidity, which was fine by me, but coming from all sorts of angles and positions, mostly landing in the middle of the box, which proved to be easy for the big Qatari keeper, Qasem Burhan, to collect.
The more we played, the more it became apparent that Quieroz has relied heavily on crosses from flanks. But to whom? The aging Karimi was always a few yards behind and Ansarifard showed he is still not ready to hustle and battle for balls with well-built defenders … be it on the ground or in the air! No wonder majority of the balls were collected quite comfortably by the keeper. But aside from crosses, the only other route exploited by us was long free throws from both side. In fact it was off one such long throw which created our best opportunity to score when Nekounam volleyed slightly off-balanced and hit the bar. Apart from this, there wasn’t much to write home about. Both Karimi and Ansarifard were more or less invisible and Quieroz almost resorted to substitutions (once again, similar to our last game) acknowledging his poor starting line up.
In this half Rahmati also saw action as the sole Qatari corner saw a dangerous header almost creeping in had it not been for a fantastic reflex save by him. However, just as his save drew much cheer, his inability to exit even for balls that landed in his 6 yard line was exposed. A weakness that has been accentuated in recent months.
The second half, sadly, was no different from the first and the series of aimless (and quite hopeless) crosses was resumed. Didn’t Quieroz speak to the boys about such crosses? Some crosses came as soon as the player had gone past the half-line as if to say “I cross, therefore I am”. Crossing just for the sake of saying “I crossed”! Bringing in the likes of Khalatbari for Hajsafi and later on, Dejagah (fresh from injury) hardly made any palpable impact as we still didn’t have enough bodies in the box meeting all these crosses.
To make matters worse, Qatari players started their usual time wasting tactics, especially their keeper who really stretched the time with his goal kicks and suddenly falling to the ground out of the blue, reeling in pain as if injured by a mortar shell! But while it is easy to point at all the unsportsman-like behavior and time wasting tactics of the Persian Gulf opponents, we have to bear the most blame for the draw as ultimately it was our defensive strategies, bad line up and formation and late substitutions that did us in. Case in point, our third substitution was done on the 90 minute mark by bringing in yet another defensive midfielder, Zareh for the invisible Ansarifard! So we have no-one to blame but ourselves and our inability to correct our mistakes during the game or at the break. Even if the referee didn’t allot a fair amount of extra time for all the time wasting and grass-rolling done.
What was our chance to put some distance between
ourselves and the rest of the group (except South Korea, of course) turned out
to be one torturous experience and one that taxed our patience. Everything was
in place for a good home victory in front of a jam-packed Azadi stadium –
something that hasn’t happened in recent
years. We had an internationally renowned coach, a decent squad of players
(although injuries to a few like Ghazi, and Dejagah were of concern), an
exhausted Qatar fresh from their drubbing by Korea mere three days prior while
our team had a rest day. We also recognized the need to get the three points
off this game as it would help our campaign tremendously.
Well, now you can imagine our utter surprise when we
first saw the starting line up chosen by Quieroz. Rahmati in goal with Mahini
and Pouladi sandwiching Aghili and Hosseini in the back was expected and quite
sensible. But it was beyond this line that raised our suspicions and ultimately
ire as Quieroz chose to go with not one, but two defensive midfielders,
Nekounam and Teymourian! So this was a departure from his earlier chosen
formations, months ago, which was a more adventurous 4-3-3. In front of these
two were the 33 year old Karimi in the
middle with Hajsafi and Heidari on the flanks. Given the latter two’s
characteristics and abilities, it was natural to wonder where the goals would
come from as these two aren’t exactly known for their goal scoring ability. And
seeing Ansarifard’s name didn’t provide any respite or comfort in this regard
either! Ansarifard’s poor performances against the very same Qatar, especially
his misses in Qatar were still fresh in our minds. What was going on? What
happened to all the claims of victory and leaving the rivals behind?
Our past experience with a single forward formation hasn’t been exactly flattering. Therefore leaving Ansarifard alone up there was quite worrying. Why such defensive posture and caution? This was a home game with a 100,000 screaming fans against the tired legs of a freshly beaten team. We were wondering about Quieroz’s game-plans when the game started and we started aggressively, putting pressure on the opponents. However, after the first 10-15 minutes of good pressure, we slowly settled into a pattern of Qatar staying back and defending in mass with only one or sometimes, two players hovering around the midline and with us basing most of our attacks from the flanks with decent pairing of Heidari-Mahini on the right and Hajsafi-Pouladi on the left. Crosses coming with rapidity, which was fine by me, but coming from all sorts of angles and positions, mostly landing in the middle of the box, which proved to be easy for the big Qatari keeper, Qasem Burhan, to collect.
The more we played, the more it became apparent that Quieroz has relied heavily on crosses from flanks. But to whom? The aging Karimi was always a few yards behind and Ansarifard showed he is still not ready to hustle and battle for balls with well-built defenders … be it on the ground or in the air! No wonder majority of the balls were collected quite comfortably by the keeper. But aside from crosses, the only other route exploited by us was long free throws from both side. In fact it was off one such long throw which created our best opportunity to score when Nekounam volleyed slightly off-balanced and hit the bar. Apart from this, there wasn’t much to write home about. Both Karimi and Ansarifard were more or less invisible and Quieroz almost resorted to substitutions (once again, similar to our last game) acknowledging his poor starting line up.
In this half Rahmati also saw action as the sole Qatari corner saw a dangerous header almost creeping in had it not been for a fantastic reflex save by him. However, just as his save drew much cheer, his inability to exit even for balls that landed in his 6 yard line was exposed. A weakness that has been accentuated in recent months.
The second half, sadly, was no different from the first and the series of aimless (and quite hopeless) crosses was resumed. Didn’t Quieroz speak to the boys about such crosses? Some crosses came as soon as the player had gone past the half-line as if to say “I cross, therefore I am”. Crossing just for the sake of saying “I crossed”! Bringing in the likes of Khalatbari for Hajsafi and later on, Dejagah (fresh from injury) hardly made any palpable impact as we still didn’t have enough bodies in the box meeting all these crosses.
To make matters worse, Qatari players started their usual time wasting tactics, especially their keeper who really stretched the time with his goal kicks and suddenly falling to the ground out of the blue, reeling in pain as if injured by a mortar shell! But while it is easy to point at all the unsportsman-like behavior and time wasting tactics of the Persian Gulf opponents, we have to bear the most blame for the draw as ultimately it was our defensive strategies, bad line up and formation and late substitutions that did us in. Case in point, our third substitution was done on the 90 minute mark by bringing in yet another defensive midfielder, Zareh for the invisible Ansarifard! So we have no-one to blame but ourselves and our inability to correct our mistakes during the game or at the break. Even if the referee didn’t allot a fair amount of extra time for all the time wasting and grass-rolling done.
So we finish the group’s third match-day with 4 points in second place with Qatar right
behind us equaling our points but having played an extra game. No need to press
the panic button yet and we still have 6 more games ahead of us. But we could
have been in a far better position had we won the game, thus putting a safe
distance between us and both Qatar and Uzbekistan. In my opinion, all those
issues are secondary to a more pressing item: Quieroz’s strategy in the group
as well as each individual game. So far we puttered in our two opening games. I hate to see yet another World Cup
campaign get smoked just because we took it too light and easy early on in the
campaign, leaving for the final stress-ridden 3 rapid-fire game scenario come
June 2013. We tasted that bitterness the last time and I’m sure we don’t like
to experience it again.
