Teams

23

FIFA Ranking

0

Finals

2018

Last World Cup

2018 (GS)

Best Performance

Iran qualified for this winter’s World Cup with 3 games to spare and will be vying to escape the group stages for the first time in their history this year. It will be sixth time that they will feature in the World Cup finals and they have made it to their third straight tournament, cementing their status as one of Asia’s elite footballing nations. They picked up only their second win in tournament history last time around in Russia, where they beat Morocco in their curtain raiser thanks to a stoppage time own goal, but defeat to Spain and a draw against Portugal were not enough to see them make it out the group. Their only other win in the history of the World Cup came in 1998 where they defeated USA, a side they will face again this time out.

Fixtures

Player to Watch

At the age of 27, Azmoun is already the third highest goalscorer for Iran, and though he has a ways to go before reaching the record of Ali Daei, he should be confident of reaching second place soon enough with 10 more goals needed to reach Karim Bagheri’s record. Having played most of his career in Russia, where he became the second most expensive Iranian of all time when he moved to Zenit, he transferred to German giants Bayer Leverkusen last January.

Squad List

Name

Alireza Beiranvand

Payam Niazmand

Amir Abedzadeh

Hossein Hosseini

Sadegh Moharrami

Ehsan Hajsafi (Captain)

Shojae Khalilzadeh

Milad Mohammadi

Morteza Pouraliganji

Hossein Kanaanizadegan

Majid Hosseini

Ramin Rezaeian

Rouzbeh Cheshmi

Abolfazl Jalali

Saman Fallah

Saeid Ezatolahi

Ahmad Nourollahi

Ali Karimi

Alireza Jahanbakhsh

Mehdi Taremi

Karim Ansarifard

Vahid Amiri

Mehdi Torabi

Ali Gholizadeh

Sardar Azmoun

Position

GK

GK

GK

GK

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

DF

MF

MF

MF

FW

FW

FW

FW

FW

FW

FW

Club

Persepolis (Iran)

Sepahan (Iran)

Ponferradina (Spain)

Esteghlal (Iran)

Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)

AEK Athens (Greece)

Al-Ahli (Qatar)

AEK Athens (Greece)

Persepolis (Iran)

Al-Ahli (Qatar)

Kayserispor (Turkey)

Sepahan (Iran)

Esteghlal (Iran)

Esteghlal (Iran)

Paykan (Iran)

Vejle (Denmark)

Shabab Al-Ahli (UAE)

Kayserispor (Turkey)

Feyenoord (Netherlands)

Porto (Portugal)

Omonia (Cyprus)

Persepolis (Iran)

Persepolis (Iran)

Charleroi (Belgium)

Bayer Leverkusen (Germany)

Age

30

27

29

30

26

32

32

28

30

28

26

32

29

24

21

25

29

28

29

30

32

34

28

26

27

Caps

50

1

10

4

19

119

23

45

44

32

17

45

19

1

0

45

24

13

62

58

92

66

34

24

63

Goals

0

0

0

0

0

7

1

1

3

2

0

1

1

0

0

1

3

0

13

27

29

2

6

6

40