The Iranian national futsal team defeated the USA futsal team 4-2 in their second match in the 2021 World Cup in Lithuania.

Head Coach Mohammad Nazem Al-Sharia started with Alireza Samimi, Asghar Hassanzadeh, Mohammad Shajari, Mehdi Javid, and Moslim Olad Ghobad in the starting lineup for this match, but only two minutes after the start of the game Alireza Samimi committed an absolutely amateurish blunder by handling the ball outside his area.

After a review by Var, he was shown the red card to send a shock wave in the team. After this incident, while Iran was playing with one player less, the American scored the first goal. That was a second shock within a few minutes of each other. However, to their credit, Team Melli player soon returned to normal and managed to score the equalizer by Farhad Tavakoli.

Mehdi Javid, and Ahmad Esmailpour scored 2 more goals to end the first half with a 3-1 margin.

In the second half, Iran struggled to score. Despite their slick and fast passing, the players failed at the last hurdles due to profligacy and wastefulness. On the other hand, the United States determined to put the humiliating result against Argentine behind them, matched Iran, and were handled the attacks very well. The goalkeeper was the star of the team.

With ball after ball failing to find the net the United States scored its second goal in the final minutes and made the Iranians quite nervous. In the final minutes of the Americans’ power play, Iran scored the fourth goal by Saeed Abbasi to end the game in their favor with a score of 4: 2 and to secure their qualification to the next stage with 6 points.

Despite the win, the performance, discipline, and attitude of the players were far from polished. The TV Mic picked up Nazim Al Shariaa telling his player at a time out “This is what happens when you do not listen.” He then went on to explain what he told them beforehand and how the players failed to apply his plan.

The final match against Argentina will be on who heads the group. Team Melli needs a huge upgrade to match Argentina, the World Champions and if they have any real aspiration to repeat or better the performance of the 2016 Futsal World Cup, they indeed need a whole lot of improvement in every department, specifically the mental attitude strength and discipline.