Team Melli will play Hong Kong on June 6th and four days later, will host Uzbekistan in the final match of the preliminary stage of the World Cup 2026. The matches are insignificant to Team Melli as both Iran and Uzbekistan have qualified for the next stage. The match against the Uzbek will decide who tops the group.
Iran is in Group E of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers along with Uzbekistan, Hong Kong, and Turkmenistan. The names of the players invited to the squad for the two last matches of the group were announced by head coach Amir Ghalenoei as follows:
Goalkeepers:
Alireza Beiranvand, Payam Niazmand, Hossein Pourhamidi
Defenders:
Shoja Khalilzadeh, Hossein Kanaanizadegan, Amin Hizbavi, Aref Gholami, Saleh Hardani, Milad Mohammadi, Abolfazl Jalali, Arya Yousefi
Midfielders:
Omid Nourafkan, Saman Ghoddos, Mohammad Ghorbani, Saeed Mehri, Allhayar Sayyadmanesh, Mehdi Limuchi, Mehdi Torabi, Alireza Jahanbakhsh
Forwards:
Mehdi Taremi, Javad Aghaeipour, Sardar Azmoun, Javad Hossein-Nejad , Shariyar Moghanlou, Mehdi Ghaeydi and Mohammad Reza Azadi.