{"id":31826,"date":"2018-05-13T09:25:27","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T16:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=31826"},"modified":"2018-05-13T09:47:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-13T16:47:17","slug":"35-named-in-irans-preliminary-world-cup-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/05\/13\/35-named-in-irans-preliminary-world-cup-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"35 named in Iran’s preliminary World Cup squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, There were barely any surprises, as Iran boss Carlos Queiroz announced his 35-man squad, which will be trimmed to 23 for the World Cup, on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps the only eyebrow-raising decisions were to drop last World Cup’s number one goalkeeper Alireza Haghighi from the squad and the comeback of MLS right-back Steven Beitashour.<\/p>\n

Haghighi had joined GIF Sundsvall after a great season with another Swedish team, Eskilstuna, but failed to play a single match there in 2018.<\/p>\n

31-year-old Beitashour of Los Angeles FC has been capped six times for Iran so far and was part of the 2014 World Cup squad. However, the defender neither played a single minute in Brazil nor has been called up to the national team since then.<\/p>\n

Also in the squad are injured veteran playmakers Ashkan Dejagah and Masoud Shojaei, who both are uncertain to regain fitness on time. Defensive midfielder Saeid Ezatollahi, despite being suspended for the opener against Morocco, made the list as well.<\/p>\n

Below comes the 35-man roster.<\/p>\n

Goalkeepers:<\/strong>
\nAlireza Beiranvand – Persepolis
\nRashid Mazaheri – Zob Ahan
\nAmir Abedzadeh – Maritimo, POR
\nHossein Hosseini – Esteghlal<\/p>\n

Defenders:<\/strong>
\nRamin Rezaeian – Oostende, BEL
\nVouria Gafouri – Esteghlal
\nSteven Beitashour – Los Angeles FC, USA
\nSeyed Jalal Hosseini – Persepolis
\nMorteza Pouraliganji – Al Sadd, QAT
\nPejman Montazeri – Esteghlal
\nMohammad-Reza Khanzadeh – Padideh
\nRouzbeh Cheshmi – Esteghlal
\nMajid Hosseini – Esteghlal
\nMohammad Ansari – Persepolis
\nMilad Mohammadi – FC Akhmat, RUS
\nSaeid Aghaei – Sepahan
\nOmid Nourafkan – Esteghlal<\/p>\n

Midfielders:<\/strong>
\nSaeid Ezatollahi – Amkar, RUS
\nEhsan Hajsafi – Olympiacos, GRE
\nOmid Ebrahimi – Esteghlal
\nAli Karimi – Sepahan
\nAhmad Abdollahzadeh – Foolad
\nMasoud Shojaei – AEK Athens, GRE
\nAshkan Dejagah – Nottingham Forest, ENG
\nSoroush Rafiei – Al Khor, QAT<\/p>\n

Wingers:<\/strong>
\nAlireza Jahanbakhsh – AZ Alkmaar, NED
\nMehdi Taremi – Al Gharaffa, QAT
\nSaman Ghoddos – Oestersunds, SWE
\nVahid Amiri – Persepolis
\nMehdi Torabi – Saipa
\nAli Gholizadeh – Saipa<\/p>\n

Strikers:<\/strong>
\nSadar Azmoun – Rubin Kazan, RUS
\nKarim Ansarifard – Olympiacos, GRE
\nReza Ghoochannejhad – Heerenveen, NED
\nKaveh Rezaei – Charleroi, BEL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, There were barely any surprises, as Iran boss Carlos Queiroz announced his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":27240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":4066,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31826"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31831,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31826\/revisions\/31831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}