Carlos Queiroz has been persistently asking the Football federation to arrange a series of friendly matches for Team Melli before a crucial FIFA World Cup qualification match against Qatar in Doha on March of next year.

Iran leads the table at the halfway stage of the World Cup qualifiers, but with a slender one point margin ahead of South Korea and Uzbekistan. No matches have been scheduled for Team Melli during the longish break which prompted the Portuguese head coach to demand some action from Mehdi Taj.

The head of federation has been talking about matches against several top teams including Italy , Spain, Morocco and Côte d’Ivoire during the last few months. Reports attributed to the FFIRI and published by many newspapers and websites claim that Côte d’Ivoire have agreed to play Team Melli in Abu Dhabi, but the Ivorian side and FIFA website that publishes most of the national teams schedule makes no reference to a game between Iran and Côte d’Ivoire. The west African country is preparing for the African Nation Cup 2017 and has the following schedule

26 DEC 2016 Friendly Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire vs. Zimbabwe
08 JAN 2017 Friendly Abu Dhabi Sweden vs. Côte d’Ivoire
11 JAN 2017 Friendly Abu Dhabi Cote d’Ivoire vs. Uganda

Despite the less than ideal condition at which Team Melli is being prepared with lack of proper facilities, high standard training grounds , chronic poor administration , inability of the federation to plan ahead for friendly matches and finally forced to play in an atrocious conditions against Syria in violation to many rules of FIFA and AFC , Team Melli is steadfastly moving ahead and has a high chance of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.

Current standing, 

GROUP A

TEAMS	MP	W	D	L	GF	GA	+/-	Pts
IRAN	5	3	2	0	4	0	4	11
KOREA REPUBLIC	5	3	1	1	8	6	2	10
UZBEKISTAN	5	3	0	2	5	3	2	9
SYRIA	5	1	2	2	1	2	-1	5
QATAR	5	1	1	3	3	6	-3	4
CHINA PR	5	0	2	3	2	6	-4	2