I ran has won a slot in the finals of the 2026 World Cup, the fourth straight time and seventh time overall it has reached the finals—but always before it has washed out in the first round of play in the finals and has never advanced further.
Stadium as the match between Iran and Uzbekistan got underway, forcing
the game to be delayed for 29 drenching minutes
Iranian fans have come to expect that Iran will appear in the finals. What they now demand is that Team Melli advance to the second round. Altogether, Iran has thus far appeared in six World Cup finals, playing 18 matches, but winning a mere three of those games.
Iran won its slot in next year’s World Cup finals by playing Uzbekistan to a 2-2 tie. Both of Iran’s goals were scored by Mehdi Teremi. That made Taremi the third highest scorer of all the players in the Asian elimination matches.
Teremi plays professionally for Italy’s Inter Milan. He moved to Milan last summer after a stunning few seasons with Porto in Portugal. But he has been disappointing in Italy, with a mere three goals scored in 34 appearances. His team revealed that he has been plagued by pulbalgia, a groin pain, meaning he has played all season by quaffing painkillers.
Five days earlier, Iran faced the UAE, winning that match 1- 0 with Sardar Azmoun, Iran’s other main striker, kicking in the lone score. That game was an oddity. Rain poured down on Azadi Stadium, flooding the field. The referee kept the match going—until the lights went out. The ref sent the teams off the field, but the game clock kept running. When the players came back, the ref added 29 minutes of overtime—which news reports said set a record. The fact that the lights went out when Azadi Stadium is most of the way through a huge overhaul prompted much carping against the authorities.
In the Asian qualifying rounds for this cycle’s World Cup, Iran has so far played 14 games, winning 10 and tying four. All four ties have been against Uzbekistan.
The fact that Iranian fans expect more from their team than just qualifying for the World Cup finals may explain why Azadi Stadium was only one-third filled for the match in which Iran qualified and the fact that there was no big street celebration after Iran qualified, as there has been in the past.
Thus far, only Iran and Japan have yet qualified from Asia for the finals.
Each team still has two more matches to play in the Asian qualifying round—Iran’s against Qatar and North Korea in June. But, mathematically, the worst that can happen to Iran is that it falls to second place in its group. And the first two teams in each group go to the Cup finals, which will be hosted by North America next year, with games scattered all across Canada, Mexico and the United States
