{"id":55161,"date":"2026-07-30T18:32:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=55161"},"modified":"2026-07-30T18:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:32:10","slug":"ffiri-president-taj-comments-on-disappointing-world-cup-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/07\/30\/ffiri-president-taj-comments-on-disappointing-world-cup-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"FFIRI president Taj comments on disappointing World Cup campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Iran Football Federation president Mehdi Taj has apologized to the Iranian people following the national team&#8217;s disappointing World Cup campaign, admitting that Team Melli fell short of expectations after failing to progress beyond the group stage.<\/strong><br \/>\nSpeaking at the Football Association General Assembly in Kerman on Monday, Taj defended the team&#8217;s overall performance while acknowledging that Iran should have achieved a better result.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We failed to advance from our group,&#8221; Taj said. &#8220;We could have delivered a better performance, and for that, I apologize to the people of Iran. However, there are important circumstances that should also be taken into consideration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Taj pointed to the logistical challenges Iran faced during the tournament, particularly the late relocation of the team&#8217;s training base to Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we had known from the beginning that we would be based in Mexico during the World Cup, we would have held our entire preparation camp in Tijuana instead of Turkey,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;We arrived just six days before our opening match after crossing a 12-hour time difference. That was one of the biggest obstacles our team had to deal with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Taj also praised the national team&#8217;s tribute to the victims of the &#8220;Minab 168&#8221; school tragedy, saying the squad proudly carried the name &#8220;Minab 168&#8221; throughout the competition as a symbol of remembrance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tehran Times &#8211; TEHRAN, Iran Football Federation president Mehdi Taj has apologized to the Iranian&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":55162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":87,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161","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=55161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55164,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161\/revisions\/55164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}