Ali Karimi , Team Melli player is the first casualty of Team Melli for the FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia

The Sepahan Esfahan midfield player suffered a back injury during training and was declared as unable to continue training for some time and is definite to miss the squad to Russia.

Karimi was in the first group of 35 players announced by Queiroz and had a fairly good chance to make the final 23 players list but he has fallen a victim of the injury a day before the team meets Uzbekistan for a friendly match in Azadi Stadium in preparation for the World Cup.