Ivankovic calls for winning mentality
Jun 2, 2005
Nick McCormack/FootballAsia



TEHRAN – Iran coach Branko Ivankovic has called for his charges to display the winning mentality he has instilled as they take on DPR Korea on Friday in the first of a Group B double-header in Tehran that could see them seal their place at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.

“I have encouraged a strong winning mentality and selected players who have this,” Ivankovic told footballasia.com.

“In our World Cup qualifying game against Japan, it was 1-1 in front of over 100,000 spectators but we got the result because of our winning mentality. It was the same against Jordan and Bahrain in the Asian Cup, two of the best Arab sides.”

Iran, undefeated in their Group B qualifying campaign so far, consolidated their one point lead over Japan at the top of table with a 2-0 defeat over the North Koreans. The tempestuous encounter in Pyongyang was marred by the hosts’ violent reaction towards Mohammed Kousa after the Syrian referee refused to award a late penalty, as well as the crowd trouble that followed the final whistle.

The catalyst for the trouble was unquestionably the disgraceful behaviour of Korean defender Nam Song-chol who will miss Friday’s meeting with Iran after being red carded for manhandling the Arab official after he refused the spot kick.

It was clearly a case of the player letting his emotions get the better of him and while emotion has often been the Achilles heel of Iran squads in the past, Ivankovic believes it can also be a useful ally when kept in check.

“Emotion and passion are important in sport,” said Ivankovic, previously an assistant to Miroslav Blazevic at both Iran and their native Croatia, who the duo led to third place at the 1998 World Cup.

“I have to get players to channel the emotion but with passion they can achieve something big. Maybe that is a problem with the current Japan side, they play like a machine. They are very good at a certain level but maybe if they played with more passion then they could do more.”

Ivankovic, however, will be hoping that clinical Japanese, who are coming off back-to-back defeats against Peru and the UAE, fail to generate the passion that will see them get a result against Bahrain in Manama on the same night.

Five days after taking on the North Koreans, the Iranians host Bahrain in Tehran and they will not have forgotten the 3-1 loss in the Arab Kingdom in the final round of qualifiers to the 2002 World Cup finals.

That defeat further fuelled the opinion that despite boasting arguably the most skilful players in the continent, Iran has an alarming tendency to self destruct in the big games. Ivankovic, however, believes that is a thing of the past.

“When I first came to Iran they told me about ‘the Iranian mentality’. What is mentality? Mentality in sport is about winning not about being Iranian, English, American, Croatian or Brazilian.

“The winning mentality is about working hard and accepting things like you will be away from your family and you cannot always go on holidays. I was told that players in Iran couldn’t do a training camp longer than 2 or 3 days. I said if you want to be champions of Asia then you must be ready to spend a month at the training camp, if not then forget it.

“Many of the young players in Iran are ready to give their time totally and have no problems with the training camps. Of course in Tehran I am more flexible. They can often visit their families at night and come back to training the day after and for the Iranian New Year I gave the three days off. This helps maintain a good relationship with the players.”

Iran’s match against DPR Korea kicks-off at the Azadi Stadium at 19.05hrs local time, with the capacity reduced from 100,000 to 50,000 in the aftermath of the tragedy that saw six people killed in a crush after Japan match on March 25.