The Asian Cup will be played over the next three weeks in Qatar. Iran will play its first match Tuesday, January 11.
Sixteen teams made it through the preliminaries to appear in the Cup finals. They have been divided into four groups for the first stage of the finals. Iran is grouped with Iraq, North Korea and the UAE.
The top two teams in each group will advance to the next stage; that is a knockout stage in which a team must win each game to advance further.
In this preliminary stage, each team plays each of the other three teams once. Here is the scheduled for Iran’s Group D:
January 11
Iran vs Iraq
N. Korea vs UAE
January 15
Iran vs N. Korea
Iraq vs UAE
January 19
Iran vs UAE
Iraq vs N. Korea
If one believes the computer rankings produced monthly by FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, then Iran should finish first in its group. Worldwide, Iran is ranked 66th by FIFA with the others bunched much further behind—Iraq at 101st, the UAE at 105th and North Korea at 108th. If that ranking means anything, Iran should cruise to first place while the other three brawl for second.
The real challenge for Iran is expected to come in the later rounds. The favored teams are Australia, ranked 26th in the world, Japan, ranked 29th and South Korea, ranked 40th. They are the only Asian teams making it into the top 50 worldwide.
Traditionally, the host team gets a big boost from the hometown crowd. But Qatar comes in at lowly 114th place and may not pose much of a threat.
Iranian coach Afshin Ghotbi has named his team for the Asian Cup. The two most familiar names are Javad Nekounam and Masud Shojai, the only two Iranians still playing in Europe. They play for Osasuna of Spain.
Ghotbi hopes to pilot the team to its first Asian Cup victory in 35 years. The national team won the cup three times before the revolution—in 1968, 1972 and 1976. It won as the host the first and third time.
Ghotbi has already said he is leaving the team as soon as the cup is over. He will then move to Japan with his South Korean wife to take over a Japanese major league team.
