A Derby of Strengths and Weaknesses

Once again a derby ended with a draw. Although one might be willing to draw up conspiracy theories because draw as a derby result happens ridiculously often, it was a pretty fair result, although Perspolis overall was maybe the better team, but Esteghlal had just as many chances to score.

Esteghlal had one main strategy to score goals, and that was playing passes in the open space behind Perspolis defense and use the speed of Arash Borhani. Perspolis didn't have one strategy to score, but since they didn't push too much for the goal, the question arises whether they had any strategy on how to score goals. They tried it in various ways, long distance, over the wings, Karimi, but for most parts, it didn't result in a goal.

Defensively Perspolis had apperently figured out that playing on offside is the best way to fight against their defensive slowness against the quick Borhani. It worked always except for twice. Once when Borhani went through in the first half and was brought down, as it seemed, in the penaly area by Vaezi. The second time in the beginning of the second half when Borhani's offside position was cancelled out by Mohammadi, a terrible mistake in an offside trap and Borhani scored Esteghlal's goal.

As usual with Arash Borhani though, he could have scored maybe 4 goals or at least 3 and assist 1, but Borhani was either wasteful or selfish, which means he hasn't changed much since the age of 20. On the other hand Nikbakht-Vahedi seemed to have been inspired by the CERN in Geneva. His football was the equivalent of a black hole. Maybe he should quit football and study physics.

Overall, Ghalenoie had figured out a way to beat Perspolis and he played to his team's strenghts and didn't try to come up with ridiculous tactical schemes. His 3-5-2 was old-fashioned but it worked for his team and in such games only the result matters. What a shame then for him that he completely withdrew in the second half. If he wanted to play Catenaccio, he should have known that Catenaccio involves counter attacking too. The players he fielded though were completely useless for counter attacking.

On the other hand Ghotbi insisting to play the offside trap way too much proved hazardous and although it's ridiculous to blame a coach for trying to play something, offside trap, that was introduced to football around 35 years ago, he might have overestimated his defense. But the simple fact that playing the offside trap seemed too much of a problem for Iran's champion is a bit worrysome.

But as it's usually the case, Ghotbi's bravery and adventourousness in the end paid off and he got the draw and didn't lose. He might have thought that he deserved more after Bagheri and Nikbakht from a freekick hitting the post, Karimi missing in front of the goal and overall being more in possesion and looking more for the win than his opponent, in the end he should consider himself lucky that Borhani wasted 3 golden occasions, Kazemi only tried to shoot once and a penalty was not given.

Both teams played well whenever their coaches played to their strengths and both teams played bad where their coaches played to their weaknesses(defensively in the case of Ghalenoie, offside trap in the case of Ghotbi).

With regards to Ali Karimi, I had to think of something Dr.Zolfagharnasab told Ghalenoie in the aftermath of the Asian Cup. Dr.Zolfagharnasab criticised Ghalenoie for playing Karimi in midfield and not in the attacking half, where he had his strengths in beating opponents and being a threat to score. Today Karimi overall had an off day, but whenever he got near the penalty area, it smelled a goal, and in the end he scored. Maybe, the only winner of the derby was Dr.Zolfagharnasab by being right in retrospect.

Perspolis 1 - Esteghlal 1

Goals:
Karimi 88' - Borhani 47'

Perspolis: Vaezi- Mohammadi, Heydari, Atsou(Petrovic 70'), Shiri(Di Carmo 55')-Nouri, Zare-Nikbakht Vahedi(Mansouri 82'),Bagheri,Karimi-Touré

Esteghlal:Talebloo-Ghorbani,Montazeri,Shakouri-Beikzadeh(Amirabadi 46'),Kazemi,Jabbari(Akbari 74'),Janvario-Borhani,Akbarpour(Koushki 65')