Overview

Iran’s Team Melli played a historic match in Esfahan, marking the first time the team has played in this city since its inception in 1940. The sell-out, vociferous crowd of over 20,000 filled Fooladshahr Stadium in anticipation of a solid performance and result from the number one favorite of this group.

Team Line-up

Head Coach, Amir Ghalenoei, who has been sticking to the familiar names in his lineup, made an exception for the match against the Kyrgyz Republic sidelining team captain, Jahanbakhsh, central defender Kananizadegan and the defensive midfielder Ezatollahi.

Goalkeeper: Alireza Beiranvand retained his place despite some shaky performances in the league.

• Defense:
  • Central Defense Partnership: Amin Hezbavi and Shoja’a Khalilzadeh.
  • Full-backs: Ariya Yousefi and Milad Mohammadi.
• Midfield:
  • Midfield : Saman Ghoddos, Ali Gholizadeh, Omid Noorafkan, and Mehdi Ghayedi.
• Forward Line:
  • Strikers: Sardar Azmoun, Mehdi Taremi.

Match Performance

Match Performance

As anticipated, Iran dominated possession, leaving little room for the Kyrgyz team to breathe. However, the hosts struggled to turn this domination into goals on a pitch more suitable for grazing than playing international football. The only goal of the match came in the 44th minute when Mehdi Taremi slotted the ball home after Noorafkan’s long-range shot was parried by the Kyrgyz keeper.

Despite Iran initially controlling most of the play in the first half, the final balls from the midfield players were poor, failing to provide quality passes to Azmoun and Taremi up front. Apart from Noorafkan’s shot that led to Taremi’s goal, there were no shots on target by the Iranians. The atrocious pitch with multi-colored patches was possibly a factor, but the main blame should go to the ineffective midfield, poor basic passing, and some arrogance issues. The trio of Ghoddos, Ghayedi, Noorafkan, and Gholizadeh were at their worst. Much was expected from Ghoddos in this game, but his lack of match practice was evident. Noorafkan, usually a right back, was deployed in the midfield, which proved to be a bad idea. Gholizadeh huffed and puffed and executed a few dribbles, but his final balls were wasteful. Remarkably, Team Melli had just one shot on goal, which was the one scored by Taremi.

Despite leading 1-0 at halftime, Ghalenoei was visibly upset by the poor performance of his team. It was a poor show for Team Melli against a solid, disciplined team with compact defending.

The second half was not much better despite the substitutions forced on Ghalenoei, where Ghoddos and Gholizadeh were replaced by Jahanbakhsh and Ezatollahi. With Team Melli failing to add to their single goal, the Kyrgyz team became bolder and more effective. The brilliance of Beiranvand prevented Joel Kpjo from equalizing after he cleverly left Hizbavi and Khalilzadeh chasing shadows. Beiranvand’s timely interception was a face-saving act.

Overall, this was a shaky start by Iran. Ghalenoei was less than pleased by some of the players’ antics. His changes may not have yielded results, but most of the blame goes to the players who failed to turn up and were found wanting by a team they beat 5-1 the last time they met.

In the same group, UAE is leading the table after the first round, having beaten Qatar 3-1 in Doha, while Uzbekistan narrowly defeated North Korea 1-0 in an earlier match.

Iran’s first goal came in the