Why Mayelikohan?

If we go by achievements, then Mayelikohan shouldn't have been in the race at all. The titles he has won as a coach can be counted without a hand, namely zero. Mayelikohan in 17 years of coaching hasn't won a single title. What might be more important though might be another number, 4. That's the number of teams he coached since the last time he was national team coach and from which he was fired. This includes the Iran Under-23 team, where he failed to qualify for the Olympic Games with a squad that a year before had won the Asian Games and was tipped as one of the most talented teams in Iran's history. It includes Peykan, a club he led to relegation and also Foolad Khuzestan, where he was also fired after another unsuccesful stint, although in a difficult situation. What he has to his credit since then is his latest stint with Saipa, where in 13 games he had 8 wins, 1 draw and 4 defeats. However, from his 8 wins, 7 were against teams from the bottom of the table, except for a 1-0 win over Zobahan. Now, let bygones be bygones and stats don't say much at times. Let's look at present and future.

Mayelikohan's preferred system is a 3-5-2, preferably with sweeper. Whether we have the right players to play the system at all is a question for itself. Our next opponent away from home, North Korea, plays a system resembling 5-4-1, but very defensive. With 3-5-2, we will permanently have at least 1 player sitting behind doing nothing. Worse still, given the defensive nature of the opponent, except if we play a very offensive version of 3-5-2 and go gung-ho, which invites the opponent to countless counterattacks, we will be outnumbered on the wings and it's the worst possible system to play against that opponent. But football is at times an irrational game and it's about 3 games, our team has a lot of talent, so motivation might just be the most important aspect.

But that might not be Mayelikohan's virtue either. The last time he was U-23 coach, he kicked 2 players out of the team for disciplinary reasons and the team wasn't really motivated at all. Except for Mahdavikia and his Saipa players, he hasn't really worked with any of the team's players and worse still, he is hardly the most popular person in Iran. In fact, if anyone was more unpopular than Ali Daei, it might have been him.

So what did IFF think by appointing Mohammad Mayelikohan? Surely, it wasn't a rational choice. Despite all of that, we wish him and therefore our team and us the best of luck and hope that he manages the miracle and takes us to the World Cup. We're all in the same boat after all.