Saman Fallah is a 23-year-old Iranian centre-back who plays for F.C Esteghlal in the Persian Gulf Pro League. Fallah has played for three different PGPL teams and has over 100 professional appearances. He has four caps for the senior Iranian national team.
Fallah has an intriguing physical profile. He is 6’2 (1.91M) and has good pace for a player of that size. He’s also fairly agile, and able to turn quickly if he needs to. Fallah’s height means that he can hoover up most aerial balls. His relative speed also makes him good at sweeping up balls played in behind. However, he does look a little bit shaky when isolated against dribblers (though in fairness all of the games I watched were in the Asian Champions League so sometimes the dribbler in question was literally Neymar). Fallah’s physical attributes should make him a strong 1v1 defender but he seems to bite very easily on feints. The psychological side of defending is a bit of a weakness in general as he also sometimes struggled with tracking runners. I thought he looked a lot stronger in the games where he played in the centre of a back three because he was more shielded from dribblers and could focus on sweeping up the ball.
On the ball, Fallah is not particularly exciting. He is extremely reluctant to use his left foot and that slows down his on-ball actions a lot. He generally keeps a hold of the ball but it’s rare to see him break lines with his passing. He can do some carrying but his stride with the ball is a little bit awkward. He can use feints to beat pressure but this is usually in service of keeping the ball. You would think his height would make him a major danger from set-pieces but I didn’t see him get any shots and he has only scored 3 goals in his professional career. Still, maybe this is something a team with good set-piece strategies could improve.
I think Fallah is too limited to play for big clubs in Europe. But he should be a relatively affordable option for mid-table clubs outside of the top leagues. His physical traits may make him attractive to teams around that level.
Target Scouting 