“We want to win against Uzbekistan”: Carlos Queiroz

Tasnim – TASHKENT, Iranian national football team’s coach Carlos Queiroz says that Team Melli is going to secure a win against Uzbekistan in the 2018 World Cup qualification in Group A.

Iran will play the group leader in Tashkent’s Bunyodkor Stadium on Thursday.

“We will play against the best team in our group. Uzbekistan won its first two matches and is leader in Group A. Nonetheless, my team will try to secure the win for the Iranian people,” Queiroz told reporters.

“My team is clearly improving year on year. When I began to work in Iran we had only one player playing for a European side, now we have 11 who are at various clubs in Europe,” Queiroz said.

“[Ashkan] Dejagah and [Alireza] Jahanbakhsh was injured some time ago, but they have recovered and are ready to play against Uzbekistan. It is good news for Iran and bad news for Uzbekistan. Of course, Iran has star players aside from those two, we are a team not individuals, and we have no player selection issues for the game,” the Portuguese added.

Meanwhile, Uzbekistan national football team’s coach Samvel Babayan believes that Iran is Group A favorite in the 2018 World Cup qualification.

“Thursday’s game see us come up against the group favorite. They are the number one ranked team in Asia and they have many high level players playing at European teams. But we have studied Iran very well and we will try to show good football,” Babayan said.

“They are all strong teams at this stage of qualifying. For example, Syria showed a good performance against both us and Korea Republic in the first two matches.”

“Each game we play becomes the most important game at this stage. But we are thinking only of Iran now,” he added.

“We watched many of their games and we will try to find way to beat them. My players are ready for any situation in the match and our aim is to win,” Uzbekistan coach stated.