6/14/2006
Kaveh Mahjoob, footballmedia.net

The 2006 world cup has started as well as everyone expected. Fast and beautiful games to watch, large and involved crowds, huge TV ratings and a worldwide audience that is only possible every four years are the marquee signatures of this world cup.

Another phenomenon that has come to light is how coaching styles make or break teams. The two Dutch coaches, Gus Hiddink of Australia and Dick Advocaat of South Korea, showed the world how to be courageous and risk takers. Their teams exchanged defeats with glorious victories.

In the other end of the spectrum, Sven Goran Eriksson of England chose a conservative and spiritless style of play that although made the British fans happy with a victory, dampened their celebrations with serious concerns about the future matches of the English lads.

Over the first few days of the world cup, one coach that has truly symbolized the “Fear Factor” and suffered greatly from his conservative philosophy is Croatian head coach of Iran; Branko Ivankovic. On Sunday’s first half match against Mexico, Iran displayed an entertaining football and went so far as almost disintegrating the Mexican offensive game plan. Football fans around the globe and tens of millions of Iranians wondered impatiently for another entertaining half of football.

At the beginning of the second half, Mexico’s head coach, Ricardo Lavolpe showed that he was the man with plan and two substitutions. Even when Borgetti was hurt, Zinha was there to steer things up. Mexico came out of the halftime break charged, confident and prepared. Branko’s team on the other hand did exactly what millions of Iranians feared for months the coach would have them do; play “not to lose.” That mentality was a scenario for disaster and disaster did indeed strike.

Iran’s quality of play in the first half proved that it belonged to the world stage. What Branko Ivancovic has not learned is that in today’s modern football, the era of conservative and defensive minded coaches is over.

When Ivory Coast displayed her beautiful speedy and technical match against Argentina, despite a loss, the world football fans cheered for them. Trinidad and Tobago shocked the Swedish side with a scoreless tie despite being a 10 man team.

In the second half of Iran – Mexico match, enough Iranian coaching failures were evident to make a good case study on “turning to courage:”

Failure of a coach to think big and believe in his team

Failure of a coach to adjust to opponent’s half time changes

Failure of a coach to pull out a 37 year old icon of the past, Ali Daei, who picked the most important stage to display why old legs can’t run fast enough against great defenses despite having a heart of gold.

Failure of a coach who was so caught up in the game that simply forgot to make substitutions. Your team is playing poorly and under tremendous pressure but you wait until minute 81 for your second sub. The question begs to ask is why so late for your substitution and what happened to your third substitution?

For those who have lived with Iranian national team over the last 3 years, what happened on Sunday’s second half was no surprise. Little to no friendly matches, insistence on using out of form players, fear of losing and therefore not taking chances to win have been engraved in Branko’s style of coaching since the 2004 Asian Cup.

Where to go from here?

First, let’s remind ourselves that the world cup campaign is not over for Iran’s Team Melli and Branko yet.

Branko has a chance to reclaim his place in Iranian football. He should take a trip back in time when he arranged brave focused teams against South Korea and Bahrain in the 2004 Asian Cup. He needs to listen to his heart and tear up the “conservative” manifest that has ruled his coaching philosophy over the past two years. Branko Ivancovic’s team can display 90 minutes of beautiful football, and therefore get good results, if:

Strikers: Bench allegedly injured (to save face or not) Capitan Daei. There should be no question on Daei’s benching. Allow Vahid Hashemian to move to the center forward position and start speedy, young and hungry Khatibi or Borhani next to Hashemian.

Midfielders: If Karimi is healthy, use Kia, Karimi and young amazing Shojaei in the midfield. This one is also controversial because Branko likes to use a healthy Zandi in the midfield. Zandi has not been in form in Bundesliga for a whole year and will not be in form come Saturday.

Defensive Midfielders: Use Taymourian in place of Nekunam.

Defenders: Use Kaebi, Bakhtiarizadeh, Rezai and Sadeghi and take out Nosrati and Golmohammadi. Golmohammadi scored Iran’s only goal but his job is to be a central defender and in that position against Portugal, we need to make a change.

Goalkeeper: Try out Iran’s current best goalkeeper, Vahid Talebloo. He has no international experience but he is the right man for the job.

Conservatives would argue that injecting 5 new players are too many changes. My response to them is: Watch the second half of Iran – Mexico.

Playing for the national team in the world cup is based on who has earned that spot “at this moment” and not who has played the most and longest. The young generation of Iranian players like Maadanchi, Shojaei, Khatibi, Borhani, Sadeghi and Talebloo are fit, speedy, technical, ready and hungry. They will surprise the world with their quality of play and could surprise Portugal.

Injured or not, the game against Mexico should have been Daei’s last match in international level. If Branko Ivankovic does not show the necessary courage that will be needed on Saturday, he would live to regret it for rest of his life. Branko has a chance to redeem himself in front of a world audience but more importantly with the hearts and minds of 70 million Iranians who believe they have a worthy team that was led wrong and had tears in their eyes following the game.

It is not too late to show courage!
It is not too late to display the beautiful game!
It is not too late to show some heart!

Kaveh Mahjoob may be contacted at Kaveh_Mahjoob@hotmail.com