Queiroz names young squad for WAFF tournament

PFDC – TEHRAN, Iran boss Carlos Queiroz named numerous talents and hopefuls in his preliminary 30-man squad for the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) championship in December.

The squad includes two legionnaires, Alireza Haghighi of Rubin Kazan and Omid Nazari of Ängelholms FF, who both could join the team due to winter breaks in their respective leagues, although the tournament will be held outside the FIFA calendar.

The squad mainly consist of U23 players of the current and previous generation, but also features some players from older age groups, of which most have already repeatedly received call-ups for the A team.

However, with exception of Karim Ansarifard, Ehsan Hajsafi, Hossein Mahini and Pejman Montazeri, no players who regularily played for Team Melli in the past years was included.

The squad will be reduced to 20 men for the competition in December.

Iran have been drawn alongside archrivals Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen in group B of the sixth edition of the WAFF championship which will take place in Kuwait from December 8-20.

Group A consists of hosts and title holders Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon and Palestine whereas group C only features three teams – Iraq, Jordan and Syria.

Below comes Iran’s squad.

Goaleepers: Alireza Haghighi, Sousha Makani, Hamed Lak, Alireza Biranvand

Defenders: Hossein Mahini, Milad Fakhreddini, Vahid Esmailbeigi, Pejman Montazeri, Mohammad Khanzadeh, Shoja Khalilzadeh, Mehrdad Pouladi, Ehsan Hajsafi

Midfielders: Omid Nazari, Maziar Zare, Reza Haghighi, Omid Ebrahimi, Shahram Goudarzi, Ghasem Dehnavi, Milad Nouri, Mohsen Mosalman, Milad Gharibi

Strikers: Yaghoub Karimi, Arash Afshin, Ahmad Hassanzadeh, Payam Sadeghian, Mehdi Nazari, Mostafa Shojaei, Jalal Rafkhaei, Karim Ansarifard, Mehrdad Oladi