Sardar Azmoun, like Mehdi Taremi, was red-carded and dismissed in the match played today.  in the tenth round of the Russian Premier League Zenit hosted Sochi in St, Petersburg and went ahead through a goal scored by Artem Dzyuba on the stroke of halftime. Three minutes earlier Sardar Azmoun was given his marching order after a VAR review of the incident by the referee. Azmoun was involved in a fifty Fifty ball with Sochi keeper but his foot hit the keeper’s midriff. Initially, the referee branded a yellow card, but on video review, he changed the color to red. Zenit went on to suffer its first defeat of the season 1-2.

Yesterday (Saturday) in Portugal, Mehdi Taremi was also given his marching order after a second yellow card was awarded for diving in the penalty box. That second yellow meant a red card and dismissal from the match. Porto however, went on to win the match 2-1.

Although Sardar Azmoun’s straight red card was more than harsh as he had the full right to go for the ball, unfortunately, he collided with the keeper with his foot high enough to be rendered a dangerous play. Taremi’s red card was typical misconduct by the player who is accumulating yellow and red cards at an alarming level in Europe. Taremi has received 6 yellow cards so far and so early in the season with club and country and now a red card!

The timing of the two red cards for arguably the best two players in Team Melli does not augur well with a crucial World Cup double starting in 4 days time, first against the UAE and then in Azadi against South Korea.

However, it was not all bad news for the Legionnaires in Europe as AEK Athen featuring three Team Melli players managed to win 3-1 away to Panetolokos to keep pace with the top of the table in Greece top division. Millad Mohammadi made his debut for AEK Athens after his transfer and played the full 90 minutes. Ansarifard and Hajsafy both were brought in with 15 minutes to go.

Iran will play UAE in Al Zabeel Stadium in Dubai at 20:45 local time (20:15 Iran Time)