Iran face tough Tunisia test
Wednesday, 15 August 2012 08:06
PFDC - KECSKEMÉT, With the arrival of the last two legionnaires, Ashkan Dejagah and Alireza Haghighi, Carlos Queiroz finally has his complete 23-men squad for the friendly match against Tunisia together.
The Portugese had the majority of the players available for his five-day training camp in Hungary already, among them likely debutant Reza Ghoochannejhad, who might even start against the North Africans in the Hungarian city of Kecskemét on Wednesday (18:30 local time).
A second debutant could be Omid Nazari, who had trained with Team Melli before, but had to postpone his debut due to administrative issues.
Missing aren't only the injured Mojtaba Jabbari, the recovering Masoud Shojaei and Andranik Teymourian, who will be suspended in Iran's next World Cup qualifier in Lebanon, but also several players, who hadn't been granted visas for Hungary. Among them were midfielder Reza Haghighi and goalkeeper Mohsen Forouzan, who have been replaced by Mohammad Nouri and Shahab Gordan.
However, also Tunisia experienced similar problems and had to leave two players behind. Besides, a couple of key players were left at their clubs, although the available team still has plenty of quality and European based players and should slight favourites against Iran.
Tunisia, ranked in 41st position of the latest FIFA rankings (seven spots ahead of Iran), are unbeaten since January this year, when they lost to Ghana and are preparing for their upcoming qualifier against Sierra Leone.
Iran will play a further friendly match against Jordan in Amman on September 4, before facing Lebanon in Beirut in World Cup qualifying exactly a week later.
