The last paragraph is something I completely disagree with. This team is one of the worst in decadea, technically and otherwise. We didn't need a foreign coach to play the way we did yesterday. Our boys gave their all and we all know Iran is a far superior side but heck what was our strategy all along? After 5 matches SC cannot find a settled back 4 combo, what the hell will he strategize? It's clear players like Jeje Lyngdoh Jacki Francis are barely SAFF class but they keep getting picked. And fuck Brandon's attitude problem, if he is the best medio in the country, you play him. Specially when your alternative options will get you beat by Guam!
And isn't a coach's job to do man management? Why can't he handle Brandon? This foreign half breed is sacrificing Indian national interests over his personal issues with an Indian, he must either give wins or go!
India going into this game as clear underdogs is a given, But for the life of me couldnt understand the concept of Eugenson & Robin in the wings. We gave 100% commitment which is what any nation who plays a team way higher than them, So thats expected.
Happy about :
A.) Gurpreet in goal, About time he gets his chance. Not yet convinced, would still need a couple more games to get settled
B.) Committment - India didnt roll over and die, Days like 7-0 to Japan and so should hopefully be past us, although you need to know we played at home with Iran playing atleast a couple of gears down.
C.) Dearth of options in defensive midfielders/Arnab - Jhingan lasting 90 mins - Being a whipping boy doesnt seem nice, So you need to defend a lot more than attack when playing outside of SAFF, We seem to have some options in the middle with which we can build on such as Dhanpal, Sehnaj, Rowlin. India though desparately needs the next climax lawrence. Also happy we have had arnab and Jhingan playing together, Seems the only solid pairing we seem to get and the best part is both get to play at the back domestically as primary defenders.
Not Happy about :
A.) Tactics- I mean what makes SC think we can have Eugene and Robin in the wings? They were completely outplayed defensively while offering nothing at the front, Having Cavin/Jackichand & Romeo doesnt necessarily mean you will score, The fact you will have an outlet to clear the ball to the flank so defense can reset!! What happened yesterday is the defenders cleared the ball with any body part that they can use to only be back under pressure because there wasnt any counterattacking threat that india had. The result due to this is 68% possession for Iran, Nil shots on goal for India. Iran even had the audacity to have just two defenders at the back for sometime as they know we wont score a goal even if our lives depended on it, It was only when Robin moved to the centre, Jackichand and Cavin bought in that they brought defenders back and we could have stitch atleast a couple of passes.
B.) Lapses of concentration - Even in the Oman, Guam and now Iran we have let in two quick goals either early in the match or early in the second half. Happens if your team is young but something that needs to be addressed to immediatly. This is the difference between a result and a defeat.
C.) Clumsy defending - Throwing yourselves, Sticking your head to push the ball away for a couple of feet, Lumping the ball forward with only Jeje to aim at when under no pressure all shows there is just no strategy in defense, Why couldnt you stitch a couple of passes and see how it goes? I mean you have all 4 defenders back plus 2 defensive midfielders so you have options to pass and build from the back and see how it goes? If you are able to keep the ball atleast for 3-4 passes is when confidence breeds in. Commitment is all said and good, This is the best we got atleast arnab & jhingan but we should atleast look for options rather than kick it or head it. The kind of football at the back stinks of lower league football in UK.
D.) Coverage - Is this match played in Iran? I mean wtf!! 20 mins or so they show the crowd and all of it is focused on those Iranians? I mean why? Do you feel inferior to show our fans? They organised pretty well or are you focussed only on the women from the Iranian fans? Completely absurd to show only Iranians when this is played in India with a decent crowd supporting our boys.
The less i say about the commentary the better without losing my temper.
Output :
Looking forward to ISL where i feel much safer, Where foreigners help hide the Indian players weaknesses. We all keep harping about more friendlies, But we have got to get the basics right!!! Your tactics, Plan B & C all set before we even step unto the pitch. Cant fault the boys but its the guys sitting in the benches who need to ponder.
I think we forgot to account for home away thing. Which will make a difference. Iran away against Turkmenistan was a draw and Turkmenistan also lost to Guam in away game. Here are the games which will make or break SC - Guam home, Turkmenistan home and away. Oman, Iran away all he has to do is remain respectable.
btw great " after the dust has died down " analysis, lots of hard hitting facts and comments from members
"But hell we gave them some hard time. Even during Asia Cup 2011, we didn't see this, every time the ball was with us we had kicked it as far as we could" ... this is so very true..in 2010 we would just hoof it, this match our clearances we measured or if possible we passed to another team member.
Vs IRAN our passing was much better, compared to what we would loose previously in 2-3 passes, ...Even our long range shots we close to the goal compared to what used to just balloon over.. our tacking was better... so there was something different here. whether it was due to SC grililng d team, or a sense of lets not get hammered here or PRAFOOL threatening the players i dunno.. our intensity ,focus & performance was at a different level. This is what i would like to see every time when India Plays.
now If IRAN did play below par why do we take away from the INDIAN Performance?..you take what you can get .. In fact we did exactly the same thing with GUAM , what Iran did to INDIA wrt attitude . We expected it to be a easy game n lost it badly. Iran obviously are just to good and managed to have a 3-0 score. all strong teams expect a easy game against weaker opponents.
A Iran vs Japan would definitely have been a different Intensty, but lets not take away from India here, we did what we had to , IRAN did not do justie to their potential, they did their job of wining 3 points. if you see the UAE vs Malaysia.. i dont think UAE Played at top gear its just that Malaysia were very bad . in our Case we raised our levels and had a 3-0 score line instead of the 7-0 we all expected or feared it would be. would malaysia have loved to play like India, i bet they would .
this Indian performance is surely better than what we played with Oman and definitely far far better than what we played with GUAM.. If SC does select d team properly, has a proper tactical set up i and we play with this intensity it is possible to win games against TK and Guam , OMAN we might draw at best , IRAN we will loose no matter what ..whether we can make it 3rd or land up last is a big guess now knowing how unpredictable we are.
Now The next Question is If SC can manage to do a BOB HOUGHTON and get the core Team to play together for a long time and have a lot of friendlies lined up.. Would AIFF facilitate him ??
Bob Houghton era didn't really see a lot of friendlies. And they trained without club commitments, that is not going to happen, and honestly that is not how national Teams are built.
agree on the concentration,coverage and commentary part..what I dont undertsand is why has stephen been trying Ganesh as CB.we have a good backup CB in Dhana..why play Francis in friendly against Nepal..instead that was the chance to play Romeo or Brandon..good thing he listened to his coaching staff and rewarded Gurpreet for his hard work in training..Subrata must have been shocked..from captain to bench :P Also I still think we need an explosive, attacking central mid..dont know who that is in India right now!..In the strike department why cant we bring in Udanta if Jeje anyways in never gonna score..Udanta brings pace which is unmatched so far..Nepal can play their U-19 guys in national team but we cant even give ours a chance in senior squad..Few guys who I feel should atleast make it to senior camps for experience are Udanta,Shankar and Vinit Rai..they are all technically good
Roony I agree with you udanta should be in the squad. Dhanchandra. Is not a genuine centre back though he played well in patches against oman he play as left back. :bz
@Silicon You chose to see the Glass half full approach here and I appreciate that. Am not taking anything away from the boys, The same commitment plus tactical awareness could have resulted in at least troubling Iran rather than playing the damp squib we did yesterday is all am pointing about.
PS: Against Oman yes we were supposed to lose by a higher margin, But note the point that in the second half we did try and play aggressively and played good overlapping direct passing football in phases, The result is we almost scored which could have ended up 2-2? I mean you have to take a calculated risk isnt it? Its a match were its 11vs11 if Iran has tactics so should India and it should point towards a result.
Comments
And isn't a coach's job to do man management? Why can't he handle Brandon? This foreign half breed is sacrificing Indian national interests over his personal issues with an Indian, he must either give wins or go!
Happy about :
A.) Gurpreet in goal, About time he gets his chance. Not yet convinced, would still need a couple more games to get settled
B.) Committment - India didnt roll over and die, Days like 7-0 to Japan and so should hopefully be past us, although you need to know we played at home with Iran playing atleast a couple of gears down.
C.) Dearth of options in defensive midfielders/Arnab - Jhingan lasting 90 mins - Being a whipping boy doesnt seem nice, So you need to defend a lot more than attack when playing outside of SAFF, We seem to
have some options in the middle with which we can build on such as Dhanpal, Sehnaj, Rowlin. India though desparately needs the next climax lawrence.
Also happy we have had arnab and Jhingan playing together, Seems the only solid pairing we seem to get and the best part is both get to play at the back domestically as primary defenders.
Not Happy about :
A.) Tactics- I mean what makes SC think we can have Eugene and Robin in the wings? They were completely outplayed defensively while offering nothing at the front, Having Cavin/Jackichand & Romeo doesnt necessarily mean you will score, The fact
you will have an outlet to clear the ball to the flank so defense can reset!! What happened yesterday is the defenders cleared the ball with any body part that they can use to only be back under pressure because there wasnt any counterattacking threat
that india had. The result due to this is 68% possession for Iran, Nil shots on goal for India.
Iran even had the audacity to have just two defenders at the back for sometime as they know we wont score a goal even if our lives depended on it, It was only when Robin moved to the centre, Jackichand and Cavin bought in that they brought defenders back and we could
have stitch atleast a couple of passes.
B.) Lapses of concentration - Even in the Oman, Guam and now Iran we have let in two quick goals either early in the match or early in the second half. Happens if your team is young but something that needs to be addressed to immediatly. This is the
difference between a result and a defeat.
C.) Clumsy defending - Throwing yourselves, Sticking your head to push the ball away for a couple of feet, Lumping the ball forward with only Jeje to aim at when under no pressure all shows there is just no strategy in defense, Why couldnt you stitch a couple of passes
and see how it goes? I mean you have all 4 defenders back plus 2 defensive midfielders so you have options to pass and build from the back and see how it goes? If you are able to keep the ball atleast for 3-4 passes is when confidence breeds in.
Commitment is all said and good, This is the best we got atleast arnab & jhingan but we should atleast look for options rather than kick it or head it. The kind of football at the back stinks of lower league football in UK.
D.) Coverage - Is this match played in Iran? I mean wtf!! 20 mins or so they show the crowd and all of it is focused on those Iranians? I mean why? Do you feel inferior to show our fans? They organised pretty well or are you focussed only on the women from the Iranian fans?
Completely absurd to show only Iranians when this is played in India with a decent crowd supporting our boys.
The less i say about the commentary the better without losing my temper.
Output :
Looking forward to ISL where i feel much safer, Where foreigners help hide the Indian players weaknesses. We all keep harping about more friendlies, But we have got to get the basics right!!! Your tactics, Plan B & C all set before we even step unto the pitch.
Cant fault the boys but its the guys sitting in the benches who need to ponder.
"But hell we gave them some hard time. Even during Asia Cup 2011, we didn't see this, every time the ball was with us we had kicked it as far as we could" ... this is so very true..in 2010 we would just hoof it, this match our clearances we measured or if possible we passed to another team member.
Vs IRAN our passing was much better, compared to what we would loose previously in 2-3 passes, ...Even our long range shots we close to the goal compared to what used to just balloon over.. our tacking was better... so there was something different here. whether it was due to SC grililng d team, or a sense of lets not get hammered here or PRAFOOL threatening the players i dunno.. our intensity ,focus & performance was at a different level. This is what i would like to see every time when India Plays.
now If IRAN did play below par why do we take away from the INDIAN Performance?..you take what you can get .. In fact we did exactly the same thing with GUAM , what Iran did to INDIA wrt attitude . We expected it to be a easy game n lost it badly. Iran obviously are just to good and managed to have a 3-0 score. all strong teams expect a easy game against weaker opponents.
A Iran vs Japan would definitely have been a different Intensty, but lets not take away from India here, we did what we had to , IRAN did not do justie to their potential, they did their job of wining 3 points. if you see the UAE vs Malaysia.. i dont think UAE Played at top gear its just that Malaysia were very bad . in our Case we raised our levels and had a 3-0 score line instead of the 7-0 we all expected or feared it would be. would malaysia have loved to play like India, i bet they would .
this Indian performance is surely better than what we played with Oman and definitely far far better than what we played with GUAM.. If SC does select d team properly, has a proper tactical set up i and we play with this intensity it is possible to win games against TK and Guam , OMAN we might draw at best , IRAN we will loose no matter what ..whether we can make it 3rd or land up last is a big guess now knowing how unpredictable we are.
Now The next Question is If SC can manage to do a BOB HOUGHTON and get the core Team to play together for a long time and have a lot of friendlies lined up.. Would AIFF facilitate him ??
Also I still think we need an explosive, attacking central mid..dont know who that is in India right now!..In the strike department why cant we bring in Udanta if Jeje anyways in never gonna score..Udanta brings pace which is unmatched so far..Nepal can play their U-19 guys in national team but we cant even give ours a chance in senior squad..Few guys who I feel should atleast make it to senior camps for experience are Udanta,Shankar and Vinit Rai..they are all technically good
Am not taking anything away from the boys, The same commitment plus tactical awareness could have resulted in at least troubling Iran rather than playing the damp squib we did yesterday is all am pointing about.
PS: Against Oman yes we were supposed to lose by a higher margin, But note the point that in the second half we did try and play aggressively and played good overlapping direct passing football in phases, The result is we almost scored which could have ended up 2-2? I mean you have to take a calculated risk isnt it? Its a match were its 11vs11 if Iran has tactics so should India and it should point towards a result.