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Ivanković: Croatia is my sparring partner for Portugal
Comments(6)Team Melli coach, Croatian Branko Ivanković, stated yesterday that he considers his friendly in Osijek on May 28 against Croatia to be a great test for his teams ability. Iran is in Group D along with Portugal, Mexico and Angola.
“I do not consider Croatia to be weaker than Portugal or Mexico” he stated. “They (Croatia) belong among the best in the world, and this they proved with their win in Austria and versus Argentina three months back. They are a team that can beat anyone”
I guess he does not consider Angola to be a threat since they are not mentioned, but what if Angola beat Argentina in their friendly on May 30..what then? Croatia has been called the Brazil of Europe, just like Portugal and I kinda like our team being compared to them, I think they have a great team and I admire their players. But I betcha we could have beat the Greeks in Euro 2004.
That is just me getting my frustrations out about the EC’04 final.
Ivanković is not a real threat as a coach. His greatest achievement is as Assistant coach to the WC’98 team, and his presence there was non-existant. He got the position by being a good friend for the coach at the time Ćiro Blažević and did not really contribute to the success of that team. He is, at best, a coach for a second division team. He has no depth of understaniding the nuances of the game, is weak when it comes to understanding the advantage of changing team formations and has no concept of how to fix a problem within a team.
He believes hard work will win the game (running, running, running) and puts no emphasis on forming a tactical alliance between players. All Portugal needs to do is score a goal or two, Iran has a weak defense, and watch the team fall apart.
Oh, and as a side note..Know how he got the Iran coaching job? Again from his friend Ćiro Blažević. He lobbied for Branko to get it after Ćiro got let go.
[...] Oh my goodness! I thought Branko gets no respect in Iran until I read Soze’s post in Croatia blog! …… Oofta! [...]
Posted from 
United States
Let’s judge Ivanković after World Cup, Soze!
Posted from United States
I’m just wondering, wait until the guys from Iran read about this… 
Posted from 
Netherlands
I’m not really judging Ivankovic, just stating his history. I hope team Melli does well. Croatians are, after all, descendants of Persians.
Pedro, I’ve been reading lately in the Iran press that popular opinion of him is the same there. He does not inspire confidence with his coaching abilities (or lack of).
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I wonder, Soze… Fra couldn’t do it, Cze couldn’t do it, Spain almost did it (if they did, the story wopuld have been muuuuuuuch diferent)…
But I do think CRO is very strong… As you know!
And well, I suspected (because of his name) that Iran’s coach coud come from a certain part of Europe, East of the Adratic… This cannot be a good sign for Portugal…
Posted from
Netherlands