What happened in the halftime?
Today Iran played its first match in the 2006 world cup against Mexico. Being the underdog in this game, I think they did a very good job, but only in the first half. In the first 45 minutes they came out strong, they were running very well, spaced out pretty good, and the passing game was working. Even after Mexico got a goal (after playing awful for 28 minutes) I was amazed how the Iranians didn’t lose their composure and they came back strong and scored in the 38th minute).
Overall I would say Iran played a superior game in the first half. The problem is that a football game is 90 minutes, not 45! I don’t know what happened in the locker room at half time, but when they came back out it looked like life was sucked out of them. I don’t think changes by the Mexican coach made the different (who wasted all of their 3 substitutions by the 60th minute) since they were not playing that well either (although they got more possession of the ball).
It looked like the Iranian team was content with a 1-1 result and wanted to play out the remaining 45 minutes. Nobody was running to the ball, there was no push to move the ball forward, it was bizarre! I really would like to understand what happened to all the energy.
Then came the brilliant substitutions by the Iranian side: taking out Ali Karimi (the game maker for Iran) and completely giving up the mid-field. The only reason I can come up for this substitution would be health problems or keeping him fresh, but knowing that if you don’t get any points in this game you are most likely going to leave the tournament in 3 games, I cannot make a sense out of the move.
Given all the bad play by Iran, Mexico didn’t seem to be doing much better either. They looked content with a draw as well, until our brilliant goalkeeper handed them a easy goal and that changed everything (I am so disappointed in what transpired there that I will refrain from going into the details).
This time around after the goal Iranians completely lost their composure and the dagger came in at the 79th minute with a beautiful cross from the right side into the box with 3 Mexican players and no defenders. It was hard to watch the last 25 minutes of this game.
Before the game started I thought Iran is going to lose by a score of 1-2. After the first half, I felt we would win 2-1! And now we have lost it bad and I think we lost a good chance to get out of group play. Congratulations to the Mexico fans.
I watched the game along with a few friends at George & Dragon. Iran’s fans were clearly outnumbered by the Mexico fans, but we made plenty of noise. If you are in the Seattle area and want to root for Iran come on out for the next two games, we can use some help.
Watching the games these past couple of days has reminded me why I (and so many other world citizens) love this game. It is a great game to watch and to play and I don’t think any other sport comes close.
