{"id":54983,"date":"2026-06-10T18:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=54983"},"modified":"2026-06-10T18:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:16:14","slug":"mehdi-taremi-irans-star-in-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/06\/10\/mehdi-taremi-irans-star-in-2026-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Mehdi Taremi: Iran\u2019s star in 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, <strong>Asia will be represented by nine teams at the expanded FIFA World Cup 2026 which kicks off on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It promises to be a thrilling campaign for all of the Asian sides, with each bidding to create history.<\/p>\n<p>The-AFC.com highlights a key player for each of the Asian teams at the global showpiece. <\/p>\n<p>Set to appear in his third FIFA World Cup, Mehdi Taremi will be a crucial factor in Iran\u2019s bid to navigate past the group stage for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>A clinical finisher, the 33-year-old\u2019s aerial ability and intelligent tactical movement are additional assets that Taremi can call upon to power Iran, with the center-forward netting 10 goals and providing seven assists in qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>Having played extensively in Europe &#8211; with Greek side Olympiacos FC his current club &#8211; the 1.87m tall Taremi\u2019s experience will be needed in Group G where Iran will have Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand to contend with. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, Asia will be represented by nine teams at the expanded FIFA&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":54984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,212,93,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-iranian-legionnaires","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":89,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54983","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=54983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54985,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54983\/revisions\/54985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}