World Cup 2006 Groups: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H

Group D Team Profiles: Mexico | Iran | Angola | Portugal

Iran

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Iran team kit

Iran qualified for their third World Cup in comfort, hardly surprising when one looks at the attacking talent at their disposal. Bayern Munich's Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdavikia of Hamburg SV and Hannover's Vahid Hashemian would find a place in any Asian line-up and are ably supported by the highly-rated Javad Nekounam in midfield.

The challenge for the team's coach Branko Ivankovic is to meld such players together into an effective attacking force as well as strengthening a suspect defence. Poor friendly results since qualification, however, have caused doubts to grow in Tehran as to whether the well-mannered Croatian is up to the job.

However, in the fickle world of football, Persia is more fickle than most and if the 46-year-old can improve on past showings in the competition in 1974 and 1998 and steer 'Team Melli' into the knockout stage then all will be forgotten and forgiven.

Iran Matches

Match # Date & Time Group Teams Result Venue
7 Sun 11th Jun 18:00 D  MEX  IRN 3 - 1 Nuremberg
24 Sat 17th Jun 15:00 D  POR  IRN 2 - 0 Frankfurt
40 Wed 21st Jun 16:00 D  IRN  ANG 1 - 1 Leipzig

Match times shown are local times for Germany (CEST/GMT+0200). Click on match date/time to view match statistics.

Past World Cup performance

Key Players

World Cup 2006 Qualification

Squad

Total World Cup 2006
# Posn Name DOB Club Caps Goals Pld Goals OG YC RC
1 GK Mirzapour Ebrahim 16-09-1978 Foolad Ahvaz IRN 68 0 3 0 0 0 0
2 MF Mahdavikia Mehdi 24-07-1977 Hamburger SV GER 93 11 3 0 0 0 0
3 DF Bakhtiarizadeh Sohrab 11-09-1977 Saba Battery Tehran IRN 33 3 2 1 0 0 0
4 DF Golmohammadi Yahya 19-03-1971 Saba Battery Tehran IRN 72 6 2 1 0 1 0
5 DF Rezaei Rahman 20-02-1975 Messina ITA 47 3 3 0 0 0 0
6 MF Nekounam Javad 07-09-1980 Al Sharjah UAE 74 12 2 0 0 2 0
7 MF Zandi Ferydoon 26-04-1979 Kaiserslautern GER 12 1 2 0 0 1 0
8 MF Karimi Ali 08-11-1978 Bayern Munich GER 93 33 2 0 0 0 0
9 FW Hashemian Vahid 21-07-1976 Hanover 96 GER 32 11 3 0 0 0 0
10 FW Daei Ali 21-03-1969 Saba Battery Tehran IRN 150 109 2 0 0 0 0
11 FW Khatibi Rasoul 22-09-1978 Pas Tehran IRN 14 1 2 0 0 0 0
12 GK Roudbarian Hassan 06-07-1978 Pas Tehran IRN 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 DF Kaabi Hossein 23-09-1985 Foolad Ahvaz IRN 48 1 3 0 0 1 0
14 MF Teymourian Andranik 06-03-1983 AbooMoslem IRN 11 1 3 0 0 1 0
15 FW Borhani Arash 14-09-1983 Pas Tehran IRN 23 8 2 0 0 0 0
16 FW Enayati Reza 23-09-1976 Esteghlal Tehran IRN 15 4 0 0 0 0 0
17 FW Kazemeian Javad 23-04-1981 Pirouzi IRN 25 0 0 0 0 0 0
18 MF Navidkia Moharram 01-11-1982 VFL Bochum GER 24 1 0 0 0 0 0
19 DF Sadeqi Amir Hossein 06-09-1981 Esteghlal Ahvaz IRN 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 DF Nosrati Mohammad 11-01-1982 Pas Tehran IRN 48 3 3 0 0 0 0
21 MF Madanchi Mehrzad 19-10-1981 Pirouzi IRN 10 3 3 0 0 2 0
22 GK Talebloo Vahid 26-05-1982 Esteghlal Tehran IRN 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
23 MF Shojaei Masoud 09-06-1984 Saipa Karadj IRN 4 0 1 0 0 0 0