Hashim Beigzadeh , Team Melli defender was put on the injured list after he broke his wrist during training in Melbourne.

Beigzadeh will not be able to play for a few weeks hence the Team coaching cadre opted to recall a replacement in Persepolis’s Mohammadreza Khanzadeh who is in Tehran. Khanzadeh was informed on the news while he was in a training session with his team. He bid farewell to his teammates and left the training urgently to prepare himself for the flight to Sydney.

Team Melli will be playing its first match against Bahrain on the 11th of January.

Khanzadeh’s selection means that Persepolis will have at least 1 player in the squad , although the chances of him getting actual playing time is minimal. Interestingly enough , Khanzadeh faced the same situation in the World Cup being the spare player for the same Beigzadeh in Brazil. However , during the World Cup Beigzadeh recovered while Khanzadeh’s name was not included in the official 23 players list.