World Cup Russia 2018: IR Iran – Preview, Squad, and Potential Line-Up
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The Islamic Republic of Iran is by far the biggest underdog in this group. The country debuted in the tournament in 1978 but didn’t qualify again until 1998. Since then the team has been featured in two tournaments, 2006 and 2014 but the nation has never advanced from the group. This year that will most likely not change after ending up in group B.
But has the team already lost in advance? On the contrary, even if the team is a massive underdog in the group, the team is not bad. IR Iran is situated on place 36 on the FIFA world ranking, frankly, there are worse teams participating this summer in Russia. The Iranian team is solid defensively and extremely difficult to break down. In combination with a strong defense, the team relies heavily on counter-attacks and these are by far the most dangerous offensive threat. Even if nations like Spain and Portugal are superior on all position, they might find it difficult to break through offensively. The team should not be viewed as bad, not at all!
The Iranian team has an interesting squad with multiple players in the bigger European Leagues. The most famous player for you all that are interested in European club football might be Ashkan Dejagah, the former Fulham midfielder, and current Nottingham Forrest player. Even if Dejagah is the most notorious of the bunch, Rubin Kazan’s Sardar Azmoun is the one to look out for. The youngster has been compared to the iconic striker Ali Daei and later hailed as the heir to Iranian football. The striker will definitely start up top and will carry the goalscoring pressure on his shoulders. Later you have Saman Ghoddos, a talented player whom currently resides in Östersund in the Swedish top tier. Ghoddos and Östersund took Europe by storm during the 2017/2018 when advancing in the Europa League when knocking out Galatasaray, PAOK in the qualification and later advancing to the knock out stages from a group containing Athletic Bilbao and Herta Berlin. The journey ended when being drawn against Arsenal but the small team was able to draw away from home against the Giants. A true David and Goliath story. Ghoddos is the front figure of the team and if the player gets the possibility to play for his national team, he is someone to look out for as well.
In the end, what are the chances for IR Iran? To be totally honest, it is not looking good for the Asian country. Spain and Portugal will be to difficult to compete with and will most likely end up in the bottom of the group. Even if the chances are slim, the team will not go down without a fight and will most likely get some points at least.
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Below you can find IR Iran’s preliminary 24-man squad:
Goalkeepers:
Alireza Beiranvand, Rashid Mazaheri, Amir Abedzadeh.
Defenders:
Ramin Rezaeian, Morteza Pouraliganji, Pejman Montazeri, Majid Hosseini, Milad Mohammadi, Mohammad Khanzadeh, Rouzbeh Cheshmi.
Midfielders:
Ehsan Haji Safi, Omid Ebrahimi, Saeid Ezatolahi, Masoud Shojaei, Mehdi Torabi, Ali Gholizadeh, Saman Ghoddos, Vahid Amiri, Ashkan Dejagah.
Forwards:
Reza Ghoochannejhad, Mehdi Taremi, Sardar Azmoun, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Karim Ansarifard.
Fixtures:
Morocco vs IR Iran – 15/06/18 – 18.00 GMT
IR Iran vs Spain – 20/06/18 – 19.00 GMT
IR Iran vs Portugal – 25/06/18 – 19.00 GMT
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