October 08, 2021
Starting the last elimination round to determine what Asian teams make it to the World Cup next year, coach Dragan Skocic added two more wins to his record, making it nine straight wins with no draws or losses since he took command of Iran’s Team Melli.
Both of the September matches were home games. First, the team defeated Syria 1-0 September 2 and then it walloped Iraq 3-0 five days later.
The team now has plenty of rest time before two more matches in October, another pair in November, two more next January and February, and a final pair in March.
The 43 teams in Asia had been whittled down to 12 by this elimination round. The 12 have been divided into two groups. The top two teams in each group will go to Qatar for the World Cup finals.
Iran has been placed in Group A, which it now leads with six points, followed by South Korea with four points, the UAE with two points and Syria, Lebanon and Iraq each with one point. Only Iran and South Korea have won a game so far in the group, and those two have been betting favorites to go to the finals since before the first match was played.
In Group B, Australia and Saudi Arabia lead with six points each, followed by Oman and Japan with three points apiece and Vietnam and China with no points. The surprise there was Japan in fourth place. Australia and Japan were the betting favorites in Group B. Japan got tripped up by lowly Oman which defeated the Japanese 1-0.
The Japanese loss caused the team to sink in the FIFA computer rankings and made Iran the Number One team in Asia. Japan fell two slots to 26th in the world; Iran rose four slots to 22nd in the world.
The play in this final elimination round is for each team to face each other team in its group in home and away matches for a total of 10 games apiece.
In Iran’s first game against Syria, team Captain Ali-Reza Jahanbakhsh scored the soul goal in the 56th minute.
In the second game, Jahanbakhsh again scored, this time in just the second minute. Coach Skocic said that early goal helped the team manage the rest of the game. Both of Jahan-bakhsh’s goals in the two games were set up with passes from Mehdi Taremi. Taremi then scored on his own in the 69th minute of the second game. Substitute Ali Gholizadeh added the final goal in injury time.
Goalkeeper Ali-Reza Beiranvand is known throughout the soccer world for his ridiculously long throws. The game against Syria was his 45th appearance for Iran and may have seen his longest throw yet. Video of the 70-plus-meter toss drew global attention.
Beiranvand drew international attention at the 2018 World Cup when he blocked a penalty kick by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Coach Skocic is getting off to a very impressive start. He coached Iranian club teams for several years before being named national team coach in February 2020. Thus, he already had an eye on the talent he would need to draw on for the national team.
Skocic started off with three straight wins in friendly matches against Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Syria. He followed that with four straight wins in the second elimination round for the World Cup against Hong Kong, Cambodia, Bahrain and Iraq. Then, in this round, he followed up with second victories over Syria and Iraq.