Team Melli squad announced as Ghoddos rejects Sweden for Iran

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, Carlos Queiroz announced a squad full of European attacking experience for the upcoming friendly matches versus Togo and in Russia.

But the breaking news came earlier this week, when Swedish based Iranian Saman Ghoddos officially confirmed his decision to play for Iran’s national team on Friday. This came after the in-form Östersunds attacker had been invited for Sweden’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers, a surprising move by Sweden’s national team coach after Ghoddos had openly announced to play for Iran in future and already had joined Iran’s national team camp previously.

However, due to missing paperwork, Ghoddos couldn’t yet debut for Team Melli.

This might be the case in the friendly matches, considering some players with lack of match praxis have been selected besides him. Suspended Mehdi Taremi, clubless Ashkan Dejagah and Karim Ansarifard, who recently had to watch his team Olympiacos from the stands mostly. On the other hand Masoud Shojaei again did not make the list, other than his clubmate Ehsan Hajsafi. Also included is the recently impressive Belgian based striker Kaveh Rezaei.

Below comes the full squad list:

Goalkeepers:
Alireza Beiranvand – Persepolis
Alireza Haghighi – AFC Eskilstuna, SWE
Hamed Lak – Foolad Khuzestan
Mohammad Mazaheri – Zob Ahan

Defenders:
Jalal Hosseini – Persepolis
Morteza Pouraliganji – Al Sadd, QAT
Roozbeh Cheshmi – Esteghlal
Hossein Kanaani – Saipa
Ramin Rezaeian – KV Oostende, BEL
Vouria Ghafouri – Esteghlal
Milad Mohammadi – FC Akhmat, RUS
Saeid Aghaei – Sepahan

Midfielders:
Saeid Ezatollahi – Amkar Perm, RUS
Ehsan Hajsafi – Panionios, GRE
Ahmad Abdollahzadeh – Foolad
Akbar Imani – Padideh
Omid Ebrahimi – Esteghlal
Ashkan Dejagah – unattached

Attackers:
Alireza Jahanbakhsh – AZ Alkmaar, NED
Vahid Amiri – Persepolis
Mehdi Torabi – Saipa
Mehdi Taremi – Persepolis
Sardar Azmoun – Rubin Kazan, RUS
Reza Ghoochannejhad – SC Heerenveen, NED
Karim Ansarifard – Olympiacos, GRE
Kaveh Rezaei – Charleroi, BEL
Saman Ghoddos – Östersunds FK, SWE