Mr. Pirouz, you are one of the well-spoken coaches of the league who always speak frankly.
(Laughter) You are also looking for controversy. Many have told me this. I like to speak well in conferences.
Now that you are speaking frankly, what do you think about the first game of the national team?
To tell the truth, the game did not go well for Iran. The national team did not perform well. I myself thought that the national team would win this match, but we drew. This was the easiest cup game for us and we should have won. I have more expectations from Amir Ghalenoui. I think he could not do his job well on the sidelines during the match. I expect a lot from someone like him. Anyway, I was the head coach. I have worked with Amir Khan for many years. I know him well, but I don’t know why he didn’t combine well in the game against New Zealand and couldn’t do his job properly during the match on the side of the field.
I want to ask your opinion about Tarami. He is the player that everyone expects to shine in the games. Why didn’t he play?
Mehdi is a capable player. He performed well in the previous World Cup. In the national team games, he usually either scored a goal or assisted a goal. In the recent friendly games, we saw that it was very close to the middle of the field. This is not good. Mehdi Tarimi is a footballer who should be in the penalty area. Especially now that we don’t have Sardar Azmoun, we have to keep Mehdi Taremi in the penalty area. I did not dislike the performance of Shahriar Mughanloo. He is a footballer who gets involved and disrupts the opponent’s defense, but Mehdi Taremi’s place is in the penalty area.
Do you think we have a chance to advance to the next round?
Football is unpredictable. tell the truth With these things that I saw in the first match of the national team, I do not give Iran a chance. Especially that Egypt showed how good a team it is. With all due respect to Amir Ghalenoui and the national team, I think that if we are going to play like the first game, we don’t have the slightest chance to advance. I would like to say one thing, I think Mr. Qalanoi’s staff should play a prominent role now. Anyway, he is under pressure and now is a situation where they should help more. The fact that you only give statistics and want to say with numbers that the national team is doing well is not true at all!
The performance of the defensive line was not good at all. is it true
Exactly. We were weak in the defense sector in the previous Nations Cups. I agree that the national team could not play good friendly matches in the past months and come to the World Cup with full preparation… but, well, the coaches of the national team have said many times about trying and solving problems. Finally, when we looked at the New Zealand game, we saw that the defensive problems have not been solved. Sometimes I used to wonder if the kids really practiced together because they didn’t have the necessary coordination.
Our midfielders did not perform well either. As if there was no proper coordination between them and the defense line.
What you said was correct. That is, there was an empty space between them. New Zealand used this space well and scored. Look at both flowers. Do not forget that New Zealand is one of the weakest teams in the cup. It means that it is a much weaker team compared to Belgium and Egypt. Well, this makes it very difficult for us. A team that wants to be successful in the cup must perform well in all areas. We even had problems pressing the opponent. Sometimes they had a lot of space in our penalty area and this made Biranvand suffer.
