Iran draw Metalist Kharkiv in Austria

PFDC – OBERWART, Team Melli and Metalist Kharkiv struggled to a goalless draw in a test match in Oberwart, Austria on Monday evening.

The best chance of an entertaining game was missed by Metalist, when Alireza Haghighi saved a 55th minute penalty kick after a foul from Ghasem Dehnavi.

The leftback had replaced Ehsan Hajsafi in the squad shortly before the start of the camp. Hajsafi had been left out due to exhaustment and the beginning of his military service.

Carlos Queiroz used two completely different lineups in the two halves of the first test match of his era as Iran coach, but rested all the U23 players as well as Mehrdad Oladi, who had just resumed training on Sunday after arriving in the camp a few days after the rest.

Metalist, third in Ukraine’s league last season, surely were a strong opposition, having already finished their training camp and having played three test matches before. After a 0-1 loss to Serbia’s Partizan, they defeated reigning Austrian champions Sturm Graz 2-1 and reigning Slovenian champions NK Maribor 3-1.

Iran’s training camp in Austria’s Loipersdorf will continue until Sunday and might be concluded with up to two further test matches at the weekend which, however, haven’t been arranged yet.

A week later, Iran will host Madagascar in Queiroz first official friendly match in Tehran, before taking on the Maldives in World Cup qualification on July 23 and 28.

Below comes the lineup of the Iranian team against Metalist Kharkiv.

First half: Rahmati – Heydari, Aghily, Hosseini, Pouladi – Teymourian, Haddadifar – Khalatbari, Karimi, Zanidpour – R. Norouzi

Second half: Haghighi – Mahini, Montazeri, Nosrati, Dehnavi – Zare, P. Nouri – Daghighi, Mobali, Seifi – Ghazi