The National Iranian U22  football team is undergoing training in its camp in Malaysia in preparation for the upcoming AFC U-22 Asian Cup qualification tournament to be held near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

The team under the guidance of AliReza Mansourian and his coaching staff is one of the title contenders for the inaugural tournament which will be held next year. It contains a list of promising Iranian players who have represented the country in different age levels, including the senior level.

The competition schedule for Iran is as follows.

23 June 2012 19:30  IRAN-KUWAIT        Hang Jebat Stadium

25 June 2012 16:30  IRAN-QATAR         Hang Tuah Stadium

28 June 2012 16:30  MALDIVES-IRAN      Hang Jebat Stadium

01 July 2012 16:30  IRAN-TAJIKISTAN    Hang Jebat Stadium

03 July 2012 19:30  BAHRAIN- IRAN      Hang Jebat Stadium

Iran Team roster

Farshad Ahmadzadeh (Pars Tehran)
Ahmad Arabpour (Foulad Yazd)
Bahram Dabbagh (Tractorsazi)
Akbar Emani (Sepahan)
Vahid Esmaeil-Beigi (Mes Kerman)
Milad Gharibi(Saipa)
MohammadAmin Hajmohammadi(Malavan)
Seyed Hossein Hosseini
Alireza Jahanbakhsh (Damash)
Shahab     Karami (Shahrdari Yasuj)
Yaghoob Karimi (Naft Tehran)
Mohammadreza Khanzadeh(Rah Ahan )
Navid Khoshhava (Tractorsazi)
Baba Mohammadi (Peykan)
Mohsen Mosalman Malavan)
Saman Narimanjahan (Machine Sazi)
Alireza Piranvand (Naft )
Murteza Pouraliganji (Naft)
Bakhtiar Rahmani(Foolad)
Kaveh Rezaei(Foolad)
Payam Sadeeghian (Zob Ahan)
Iman Sadeghi (Malavan)
Eman Shirazi (Zob Ahan)
Shariar Shirvand (Machine Sazi)
Murteza Tabrizi (Pas Hamadan)
Ahmad Zendeh Rouh (Mes Kerman)

About AFC U-22 Asian Cup

The AFC U-22 Asian Cup was first proposed to the Organising Committee for Youth Competitions on 23 November 2007. It is planned for youth development and to solve the issue of insufficient FIFA match dates.

The AFC Competitions Committee held on 28 July 282008 has decided that the first edition of the Competition shall be in 2013 with the Qualification event in 2012.

The AFC U-22 Asian Cup is open to all AFC Member Associations. All participating teams will go through a qualification round with sixteen (16) teams advancing to the Final Championship which will be held in a host country to be determined.

The draw for the qualifiers was held on 14 February 2012 in AFC House. Similar to other age-limit national team competitions, the draw was conducted on Zoning Basis for West (West & Central / South Asia) and East (East & Asean). Since it is the first edition of the Competition, the rankings of AFC U-19 Championship 2010 was applied for the seeding of teams during the draw.

There are seven groups consisting of a total of 41 teams.Top two from each group and one best third placing of all groups (total 15) will qualify to the Finals of the competition.

The Host of the competition shall receive an automatic qualification to the final round of the competition.

The Competition will replace the Olympic Football Tournament Asian Qualifiers and as the second biggest national team competition after AFC Asian Cup, it is expected to attract a lot of attention from sponsors, fans, media and increase the overall value of AFC Competitions.