{"id":54895,"date":"2026-05-17T06:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=54895"},"modified":"2026-05-17T06:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:03:18","slug":"ghalenoei-names-preliminary-iran-squad-with-several-notable-exclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/05\/17\/ghalenoei-names-preliminary-iran-squad-with-several-notable-exclusions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghalenoei names preliminary Iran squad with several notable exclusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIFA – Tehran, Head coach Amir Ghalenoei has selected an initial 30-strong IR Iran squad for the FIFA World Cup, with forward Sardar Azmoun a notable omission. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Just over a month out from their FIFA World Cup 2026™ opener with New Zealand, head coach Amir Ghalenoei has named an extended IR Iran squad as the nation prepares to head to a fourth consecutive finals. <\/p>\n

The 30-strong selection will travel next week to T\u00fcrkiye, where they will face Gambia in a pre-tournament international in Antalya on 29 May before shifting to their base camp in Arizona. <\/p>\n

Iran’s Extended World Cup squad<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goalkeepers<\/strong>
\nAlireza Beiranvand,
\nSeyed Hossein Hosseini
\nMohammad Khalifeh
\nPayam Niazmand<\/p>\n

Defenders<\/strong>
\nDanial Eiri
\nEhsan Hajsafi
\nSaleh Hardani
\nHossein Kanaani
\nShoja Khalilzadeh
\nMilad Mohammadi
\nAli Nemati Omid Noorafkan
\nRamin Rezaeian<\/p>\n

Midfielders<\/strong>
\nRouzbeh Cheshmi
\nSaeid Ezatolahi
\nMehdi Ghaedi
\nSaman Ghoddos
\nMohammad Ghorbani
\nAlireza Jahanbakhsh
\nMohammad Mohebi
\nAmir Mohammad Razzaghinia
\nMehdi Torabi
\nAria Yousefi<\/p>\n

Forwards<\/strong>
\nAli Alipour
\nDennis Dargahi
\nHadi Habibinejad
\nAmirhossein Hosseinzadeh
\nAmirhossein Mahmoudi
\nKasra Taheri
\nMehdi Taremi<\/p>\n

All squads are provisional until the final list of 26 players is announced by FIFA, following their submission by participating teams, on 2 June.
\nTaremi in, Azmoun out<\/p>\n

Ghalenoei\u2019s extended squad is heavy on experience, with star forward Mehdi Taremi one of almost a dozen players to have accrued half a century of caps or more. <\/p>\n

There was, though, no place for the nation\u2019s third-highest scorer Sardar Azmoun, Belgian-based winger Allahyar Sayyadmanesh or young midfielder Mohammad Javad Hosseinnejad. <\/p>\n

The vastly experienced coach told the FFIRI website that selecting the extended group was an incredibly challenging task. <\/p>\n

“Selecting 30 players for this final training camp ahead of the World Cup was the most difficult technical decision of my coaching career,” he said. <\/p>\n

After that Group G opener, Team Melli remain in Los Angeles to face Belgium before the group closer in Seattle against Egypt on 26 June. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIFA – Tehran, Head coach Amir Ghalenoei has selected an initial 30-strong IR Iran squad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":54896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,93,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-world-cup"],"views":126,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54895","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\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54897,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54895\/revisions\/54897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}