Iran GM Hamid Estili praises Wales’ teamwork ahead of World Cup

South Wales Argus – TEHRAN, Iran football boss has said his side must not concentrate too much on stopping Gareth Bale in its World Cup group match in Qatar because Wales is no longer a one-man team, writes Anthony Harwood.

Hamid-Reza Estili was speaking about the threat the former Real Madrid star – who has scored 38 goals for his country – poses ahead of the match at the Al Rayyan Stadium on November 25.

“Wales qualified for the World Cup on the strength of their teamwork and attitude and not a single player,” he said. “If we concentrate too much on Gareth Bale, we will disregard their real strength of teamwork”.

Estili, 55, believes Group B – which also contains England and the USA – is the toughest of all eight groups for his side because Wales were seeded lower than they should have been due to qualifying late.

Due to the war in Ukraine, Rob Page’s men were only able to qualify in June – two months after the draw for the tournament was made, and as a result the group does not include a seed 4 team.

“Had Wales qualified ahead of the draw, they would be placed in seed two. So we have a seed one team, and two seed two teams as well as ourselves, a seed three team”, he said.

Estili, who is Iran’s general manager and scored in ‘Team Melli’s’ famous 2-1 victory over the USA at the 1998 World Cup in France, is expecting matches against the two British sides to be very tough.

“Wales play very much a physical and English style of football. Our biggest strength against an opponent like England or Wales is our own players’ motivation, determined to give a good account of themselves and as a whole our Team Melli on the world stage.

“We have shown in the past that we can elevate our performance against much tougher opponents. Hopefully we can rise to the occasion this time around”.

The Iranian squad includes a dozen footballers now playing in Europe including in the Premier League (Saman Ghoddos – Brentford) and the Championship (Allahyar Sayyadmanesh – Hull City) as well as the Bundesliga (Sardar Azmoun – Bayer Leverkusen) and the Primeira Liga (Mehdi Taremi – FC Porto).

But the team was recently thrown into chaos when manager Dragan Skocic was sacked, only to be re-instated six days later amid reports of splits among players.

Estili said the psychological pressure on the players in their match against the USA will be huge due to the hatred between the countries at the political level, but believes that times have moved on.

“This match carries less of sensitivity than the one 24 years ago as circumstances have changed. The world around us has changed. We will go to Qatar for football and are not concerned about politics.

“We play the United States in our last group match and hope to be in a position that a repeated win against them will propel us to the knockout stages for the first time ever”.

Incredibly, England and Iran have never met at senior level and Estili said the fixture in Qatar will be first time his country have played against a ”football world power” in an opening World Cup match – since losing 3-0 to The Netherlands in 1978.

“The Premier League and its exciting brand of football is followed with intense passion by our fans. There are English fan clubs in Iran who follow every step of those clubs and their players. The football passion in Iran is unrivalled and surpasses that of England, if you can believe it. So, you can imagine what it means for us to play England, at the senior level, for the first time ever and, of all occasions, our first game of a World Cup!”