Team Melli team will play a friendly match against the national squad of Russia on March 23 in Tehran.

The match is scheduled to kick off at 8:00 p.m. local time on Thursday (tomorrow)

IRAN

This will be the first Team Melli team under the newly appointed Head Coach Amir Ghalnoei. The former Esteghlal player and coach, has won many titles with Esteghla and Sepahan, however, his brief stint with Team Melli back in 2007, was not up to expectations as he resigned after elimination from the AFC Asian Cup quarter-finals.

Despite the expectation, the squad picked for the matches vs Russia and Kenya in six days’ time, still consists of players of the age of 30   seven (7 players are 30 years and over) while only 2 players are at the age 20 or below. That does not sound like Ghalenoei is going all out to rejuvenate the team. Of course, he needs time to do that and his selection of over 7 uncapped players is an indication that he is going for some kind of tactical and personnel changes.

Ghalenoei has declared that the fans need to see beautiful football. It remains to be seen if he is going to do anything about that after 8 years of bland defensive football of Carlos Queiroz.  Under the Portuguese coach, Iran was subjected to an embarrassing 6-2 defeat against England in the World Cup.

There are several players missing in Team Melli the most significant of them is Sardar Azmoun. However, with Taremi in excellent form in Porto, the absence of Azmoun will be mitigated. The rest of the lineup should see some changes too as Ghalenoei will surely be looking at options against a strong opponent.

RUSSIA

Russia is a team in turmoil. Politics has harmed the team with sanctions barring the Russian football team from participating in all football activities. Still, they have managed to play some friendlies lately. Last year, the Russian national football team played three friendly football matches, namely against Kyrgyzstan in September (2-1) and against Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in November (both matches ended in scoreless draws).

Iran will be a powerful opponent, especially at home, in which the Russian team has to be at its best.  It is not known how many changes in the team will Head coach Valeri Karpin embark on for this match. Karpin who was appointed on 26 July 2021 had lost 1 match in 10 so far, so his record is quite good with Russia. who also has another match against Iraq in St. Petersburg.

None of the current squad plays outside Russia.

Russian Football Union (RFU) President Alexander Dyukov announced in late November 2022 that, in light of the barring of Russia’s national teams and football clubs from UEFA and FIFA competitions, the RFU was looking at joining the Asian Football Confederation.