Iran Futsal team arrived on Saturday 8th November to compete in the International Futsal Grand Prix to be held in Brazil from Nov. 11 to 16.

The tournament will gather five other teams, including hosts and defending champions Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Guatemala and Costa Rica, who are divided into two groups.

Group A consists of Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam.

Group B is Iran , Guatemala and Costa Rica.

The tournament will kick off on Nov. 12, with Vietnam facing Brazil. In their last match in HCM City last November, Vietnam won, 3-2.

The six teams will compete for the championship of the ninth edition, with the top two in each group advancing to the semi-finals.

The Brazilian Futsal Confederation has organized the FIFA-recognized Grand Prix, one of the world’s major tournaments for the sport, every year since 2005. Brazil won seven of the eight editions held so far, losing only once to Spain in 2010.

The Futsal Team is actively training under the supervision of Team Melli Futsal head coach Jesus Candelas. The Spaniard warned against taking the two Latin American teams lightly and dismissed any notion of the group being an easy passage. “Guatemala and Costa Rica are coming with full strength team and trying to prove a point. Both teams have strong line ups and it is not going to be a smooth sailing for us”

Team Melli arrived in Brazil on Saturday without several names including the recently injured Vahid Shafei

The names of the players sent to Brazil as follows:

Alireza Samimi, Sepehr Mohammadi, Alireza Vafaei, Hossein Tayebi, Ali Asghar Hassanzadeh, Farhad Tavakoli, Hamid Ahmadi, Ahmad Esmaeilpour, Mehdi Javid, Abolghasim Arooji, Behrouz Jafari, Mohammad Shajarian, Mohammad Reza Sang-Safidi  and Meysam  Khayyam.

Iran’s first match will be on Wednesday 12th Nov. against Guatemala while on on Friday 14th they will play Costa Rica.