Iran will face their toughest test yet when they play Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals of the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2021 at the Kaunas Arena on Monday.

In what promises to be a thrilling encounter, Kazakh fans will be hoping that the quarter-final is decided in normal time, as Team Melli won two penalty shootouts and another match after extra-time at the last Futsal World Cup.

On the other hand, Iran might want to avoid another open encounter like their Round of 16 epic against Uzbekistan, as scoring against Kazakhstan and their formidable goalkeeper Higuita, aided by defensive stalwart Douglas, has proven extremely difficult in Lithuania 2021.

 

Team Melli opened their campaign with a narrow 3-2 victory over Serbia before seeing off the United States 4-2, with a 2-1 defeat against Argentina being their only blemish as they finished second in Group F behind the South Americans.

In the Round of 16, Uzbekistan found a chink in Iran’s armor going toe to toe with the 12-time Asian Champions in a nail-bitting 9-8 scoreline in the Iranians favor.

Missing from the Iran line-up is Hossein Tayyebi, who featured in the two previous editions but captain Ali Asghar Hassanzadeh has still not lost his deft touch – evident in his cheeky lob over Argentina goalkeeper Lucas Farach.

 

Head to head.

Iran never lost to the Kazakh before. Their first meeting was in the final of the AFC AFutsal Championship 2000 on 12th May. Kazakhstan was a member of AFC then before switching to UEFA.  Team Melli won 4-1 to lift yet another title. From then on, the two teams met 4 times with Iran winning 3 and drawing one. All the wins were with a margin of one goal.

 

Iran’s concern.

 

Despite winning a thrilling match against Uzbekistan and scoring 9 goals at this stage of the Futsal World Cup, all was not well with the team.

By now the whole world knows how Iran is vulnerable in defense during the power play as every time Uzbekistan deployed that plan, they scored at will! The reason for such failure is tactical and psychological.

In football and futsal for that matter, it is common knowledge that a team is most vulnerable to be scored against right after they score a goal. Elation and celebrations of the players put them at risk of forgetting their tasks. This happened repeatedly against the Uzbek team who cleverly took advantage.

The more serious of the issues, however, is the tactical shortfalls. It seems that the coaching staff was caught off guard and did not prepare the team well to counteract the power play of the opposition. Clearly, the marking was poor with goals being easily scored due to the abysmal marking.

If Nazim Al-Sharia wants to enhance the chances of Iran qualifying for the last four, he and his coaching staff must organize the defenses much better, especially during the power play. In fact, Iran’s defense was suspect through the whole tournament with the goalkeeper being the culprit in a few goals. The only decent defensive performance was against Argentina which Iran narrowly lost 2-1 to the defending champion.

There will be a lot of pressure tomorrow Mental strength and discipline have to be priorities else no tactical masterplan can help against the best defensive team of the tournament.

Injury List

Farhad Fakhim ( injured for the rest of the championship)

Hossein Tayebi (On the recovery, possible brief playing time)