Reddit Team Preview: Iran

[Leicester City]

Hey guys, I was asked to do the world cup preview thread for Iran on the soccer subreddit.
I've just whipped it up quickly and I thought I'd run it by you guys to see if there are some glaring errors or mistakes I made, or if there is something I missed. Note, this isn't the full preview, just the 23 man squad and the starting 11. You can find the full preview when it gets posted on the subreddit very soon.

Goalkeepers
Alireza Beiranvand
Rashid Mazaheri
Hossein Hosseini

Defenders
Vouria Ghafouri
Jalal Hosseini
Milad Mohammadi
Morteza Pouraliganji
Majid Hosseini
Pejman Montazeri
Aghaei
Ramin Rezaeian

Midfielders
Ehsan Hajsafi
Saeed Ezatollahi
Masoud Shojaei
Omid Ebrahimi
Vahid Amiri
Saman Ghoddos
Alireza Jahanbakhsh
Ashkan Dejagah

Forwards
Karim Ansarifard
Mehdi Taremi
Reza Ghoochannejad*
Sardar Azmoun
Note: Kaveh Rezaei may be picked over ghoochannejad but unlikely given the particularl preference Quieroz has for the latter.
Here, I am not sure about Aghaei

Potential Starting 11:
Beirandvand
Ghafoori Pouraliganji Hosseini Mohammadi
Hajsafi Karimi/Ezatollahi
Alireza Dejagah Ghoddos
Azmoun
Important Note: Ezatollahi is the starter for the national team, but he is suspended for the first match due to a red card in a qualification match. He will miss the first game but will start against Portugal/Spain.
Thanks guys. This is not necessarily the lineups or selections that I want, but they are what I believe Quieroz will pick. I will consider the varying opinions you guys might have (such as Rezaeian over Ghafoori), but i'm mainly interested in glaring errors i've made, such as an injury that I am not aware of or a clear indication that one or more of those players will not be there.

Fellow PFDC member and Redditor Arshia42 created an amazing preview for Iran for the 2018 World Cup! Check it out!

[persian_pooya]

Fellow PFDC member and Redditor Arshia42 created an amazing preview for Iran for the 2018 World Cup! Check it out!

Excellent write up

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[persiangooner]

Fellow PFDC member and Redditor Arshia42 created an amazing preview for Iran for the 2018 World Cup! Check it out!

LOL 'Weaknesses: too much hair gel'

[Babak agha]

Lol 'Sardar literally means 'has head''.
What does sarvan mean then? Head tub?

Good piece tho.

[JamB]

Love it-only thing is I am sure than taremi will start though

[Iranianarsenal11]

One thing I wasn't too big a fan of was the part where Arshia mentioned "marred with war"... What war? The Iraq-Iran war of 30 years ago?

I don't want people confusing us with Iraq

Other than that, AMAZING piece of work Arshia jan!!

[Iranianarsenal11]

Also found it pretty interesting that a CP Sporting and Portugal NT fan commented "Amir is pretty good, any chance he starts"?

Really hope Amir pulls a 2014 Haghighi and ends up starting. He has the same aura..

[nisfejahan]

Sardar does not mean "has head". It also does not mean "head on a noose".

Sardar, as everyone knows, means an army or military leader.

Good write up otherwise.

[shahabGAOL]

nice one! Thanks. I execpt allot from Sardar Azmoun and Alireza this coming World Cup! Sardar playing home against Spain so if he can score there would be a very big suprise. Spain and Portugal not the strongest anymore we saw this at EURO 2016 in France

[Kian Persepolis]

nice one! Thanks. I execpt allot from Sardar Azmoun and Alireza this coming World Cup! Sardar playing home against Spain so if he can score there would be a very big suprise. Spain and Portugal not the strongest anymore we saw this at EURO 2016 in France

What do you mean? Portugal won Euro 2016 lol

[shahabGAOL]

What do you mean? Portugal won Euro 2016 lol

They start bad in there groups! Portugal playing draw against Hungary, Austria and Iceland

1
Hungary 3 1 2 0 6 4 +2 5 The first 3 Advance to knockout phase
2
Iceland 3 1 2 0 4 3 +1 5
3
Portugal 3 0 3 0 4 4 0 3
4
Austria 3 0 1 2 1 4 −3 1

[nisfejahan]

What do you mean? Portugal won Euro 2016 lol

Yes they did. But they came out of their group as the 3rd team having 3 ties against Austria, Iceland and Hungary. They barely beat Croatia in 16s in extra time. Then they tied their next game (not sure who it was) and won on penalties. I think they won in regular time in the semis. The final was also a tie and they won after extra time against France.

They are a very good side, no doubt. But they are not the caliber you expect from the European Champs. I think their Euro championship had a large element of luck in it.

[shahabGAOL]

Yes they did. But they came out of their group as the 3rd team having 3 ties against Austria, Iceland and Hungary. They barely beat Croatia in 16s in extra time. Then they tied their next game (not sure who it was) and won on penalties. I think they won in regular time in the semis. The final was also a tie and they won after extra time against France.
They are a very good side, no doubt. But they are not the caliber you expect from the European Champs. I think their Euro championship had a large element of luck in it.

Croatia beat Spain 2:1 in there group and Spain won the World Cup even. If we win the first game against Morocco we will play much better in the game against Spain and Portugal. Even we play very good against Argentina at World Cup 2014 that nobody had expected all my friends and work at office had said 5:0 for Argentina and we almost draw/win the game!

1
Croatia 3 2 1 0 5 3 +2 7 2 Advance to knockout phase
2
Spain 3 2 0 1 5 2 +3 6
3
Turkey 3 1 0 2 2 4 −2 3
4
Czech Republic 3 0 1 2 2 5 −3 1

[Arshia42]

Thank you for the shoutout!
Some clarifications:
The "marred with war" part was not written by me, that was one of the moderators. On the original post itself, I only wrote the predicted final squad, predicted 11 and points of discussion- because that is what the moderator asked of me. I decided to go further in depth in a separate comment.
Secondly, curse whichever Iranian on reddit wrote the "sardar" thing because that's exactly where I took that joke from. I thought it made perfect sense too because literally in the name "sar" -head "dar"-has it looked like it worked fine but I guess not, so apologies for that part. Hope you guys enjoyed!

[teammelli91]

Good read! Thanks for the share