Editorial: I support Clemente

Before anything else, everyone should give their full support to Clemente. No matter where he will live, now is not the time to work against Clemente, but work with him. Everyone believes it would be positive rather than negative the more IPL games Clemente watches from the stands, but the man will want to do a good job just as me and you want him to do, and he will do everything in his power to do so.

Moving forward it would be good to bring with us the lessons we learned from the past. Before the Syria game Ebrahimzadeh had tried out 4-2-3-1 with Ali Karimi in between midfield and a lone striker. Karimi's shape is shamefully far away from his best days in FC Bayern, however Karimi can still hurt any team in Asia, and win any game in Asia for Iran. Though not as a central midfielder. These lessons should have been learned before the Syria clash, but they weren't and instead Iran had to pay a big price to learn it after the Syria game. Karimi in his current shape will hurt his team much more than help it if he plays in central midfield having two strikers in front of him in a 4-4-2, this is what happened against Syria, as he simply couldn't run enough to help out neither in defence or offence. Andranik was left out alone in central midfield against three Syrian players (one very offensive, almost a third striker).

Ali Karimi has previously been the top scorer of the UAE league, and it's now, better late than never, time to move him back to same role he had during his record goal scoring season. Nekounam and Andranik could form the best central midfield in Asia, if the Osasuna star isn't fit before the Kuwait game, Clemente needs to find a replacement. Mobali proved against Syria that he should have played in that position from start, but will he catch the eye of Clemente?

The power of tradition is strong in football, for those who don't believe I want to present some black on white facts. Iran has in its previous seven meetings with UAE never lost, and won all but one game. Iran against Syria has in its previous 21 games only lost one, and against Kuwait won more than twice the amount of games it has lost. Kuwait has in it's previous nine away qualification games only won two, while Iran has won nine out of 14. UAE has lost more than it has won in its last 13 away games and Syria on paper is weaker than both UAE and Kuwait. For home games Saudi Arabia and Japan are outstanding in Asia with Iran and South Korea coming just behind with only one home defeat each in qualification matches, for some time now.

Now is not time for scratching heads and doubting, now is not time for crying out critics, now is time for believing and supporting. Now is time for cheering the team on.

Ps. Clemente is not a one man team, but whatever his eyes won't see, other coaching staff's eyes will see...