ISP Analysis: Saudi Arabia – Iran

The first picture illustrates the start of the Saudi attack. Saudi in white have five players participating in the attack while Iran in red have their four defenders all in place and three of their four midfielders sitting in front of the defence. When the pass is played out to Bin Sultan Zandi here makes a big mistake by not taking this Saudi attack seriously. Instead of running back and helping out Zare he’s jogging back which results in him never being in position when Shuhail makes his overlap. This is illustrated in pictures 2-6. What we also can see in pictures 3-4 is that Zare is totally focused on the ball holder Bin Sultan. When Bin Sultan plays the ball past Zare he has no chance against Shuhail who runs past him into the penalty box.

Zare’s mistake here is to not give away the responsibility of Bin Sultan to Zandi and take over the player running the overlap. This isn’t caused by Zandi being late into the situation but that might have made Zare to focus more on the first danger rather than the overlap.

The sixth picture illustrates that Al Harthi is alone in the box together Hosseini, Aghili and Gholamnejad. Those three are perfectly in position and Hosseini should know that currently Al Harthi is the only danger. What happens a second later is that Hosseini just leaves Al Harthi alone and instead runs in position to cover in front of his goalkeeper. Hosseinis’s mistake becomes costly when the pass is played to Al Harthi as his finish left Rahmati without any chance.