{"id":47003,"date":"2022-09-22T18:15:26","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T01:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=47003"},"modified":"2022-09-22T18:15:27","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T01:15:27","slug":"sportsmole-iran-vs-uruguay-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2022\/09\/22\/sportsmole-iran-vs-uruguay-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"SportsMole: Iran vs. Uruguay [Preview]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sportsmole.co.uk – VIENNA, Both looking to ramp up their preparations for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar,\u00a0Iran\u00a0and\u00a0Uruguay\u00a0will do battle in an International Friendly in Austria on Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two nations each did enough to progress to the global competition without going through an Inter-Confederation playoff and will aim to build further momentum ahead of the beginning of the group stage in two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran will come into the latest round of International Friendlies on a high, having booked their place in a third consecutive World Cup tournament thanks to an impressive run in Asian qualifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They began with a relatively dominant second-round display, topping their group with 18 points from eight outings to progress to a third-round group with the aim of automatic progression to the upcoming tournament with a top-two finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even despite facing tougher competition from the likes of South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Iraq, Team Melli excelled and topped the group scoring eight wins and 25 points from their 10 outings, with a draw and a defeat in their two fixtures with South Korea being the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That performance came under the management of\u00a0Dragan Skokic, but Iran now enter a new era with\u00a0Carlos Queiroz\u00a0appointed for the World Cup following his exit, and he will take charge of his first game as the national team boss on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They will now aim to make a winning start under the new manager to build confidence in the camp before taking on Senegal next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uruguay make the trip aiming to continue their unbeaten run under the management of\u00a0Diego Alonso, who replaced\u00a0Oscar Tabarez\u00a0in November after 15 years at the helm, with La Celeste in danger of missing out on World Cup qualification at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With just four games left in the South American group, they sat on 16 points, but the new boss’s appointment had an instant impact as they strengthened their claim with back-to-back wins over Paraguay and Venezuela after the turn of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their improved run would continue as Uruguay booked their place in the group stage by making it four in a row to end qualifying, beating Peru and Chile 1-0 and 2-0 respectively in the final two fixtures, with\u00a0Giorgian De Arrascaeta\u00a0hitting the decisive goal in the former and\u00a0Luis Suarez\u00a0and\u00a0Federico Valverde\u00a0getting on the scoresheet in the final 15 minutes of the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the back of that impressive turnaround, La Celeste were most recently in action in a run of friendlies in June, and they continued an unbeaten start to their new era, beating Mexico and Panama 3-0 and 5-0 respectively either side of a goalless stalemate with the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having now won six of their seven games in the new year, Alonso’s side will be full of newly-found confidence and will aim to continue an undefeated run going into the beginning of the tournament in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Form:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran form (all competitions): WWWLWL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uruguay form (all competitions): WWWWDW<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team News:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both sides will likely field full-strength starting XIs from the squads they have called up with the aim of establishing their best setup for the World Cup, and Iran have plenty of goal threat in their ranks with the likes of\u00a0Mehdi Taremi\u00a0and\u00a0Sardar Azmoun\u00a0fighting to lead the line, having hit 27 and 40 international goals respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feyenoord winger\u00a0Alireza Jahanbakhsh\u00a0is another danger man and will likely operate from the left-hand side from the outset, while Brentford’s\u00a0Saman Ghoddos\u00a0will look to provide further quality going forward from a midfield role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uruguay have been unable to call on veteran striker\u00a0Edinson Cavani, who only recently returned to fitness for Valencia, but they do still have all-time top scorer Luis Suarez and new Liverpool man\u00a0Darwin Nunez\u00a0to lead the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federico Valverde is another threat going forward, having enjoyed an impressive start to the La Liga campaign with Real Madrid, with three goals and an assist in their six consecutive league victories, while Tottenham Hotspur star\u00a0Rodrigo Bentancur\u00a0will play an important role in midfield, likely alongside either\u00a0Manuel Ugarte\u00a0or\u00a0Lucas Torreira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experienced defenders\u00a0Diego Godin,\u00a0Jose Gimenez\u00a0and\u00a0Sebastian Coates\u00a0are all absent from this squad, meaning Barcelona’s\u00a0Ronald Araujo\u00a0will be relied on heavily at the back alongside the likes of\u00a0Martin Caceres\u00a0and\u00a0Matias Vina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran possible starting lineup:<\/strong>
Beiranvand; Moharrami, Kanaanizadegan, Hosseini, Hajsafi; Ezatolahi; Azmoun, Ghoddos, Nourollahi, Jahanbakhsh; Taremi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uruguay possible starting lineup:<\/strong>
Muslera; D Suarez, Araujo, Caceres, Vina; Bentancur, Ugarte; De Arrascaeta, Valverde; L Suarez, Nunez<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We say: Iran 1-2 Uruguay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both sides will be full of confidence and looking to build momentum with plenty of star men on show, and we see La Celeste’s squad as slightly stronger all round and back them to triumph and continue an unbeaten run under the refreshing new management of Alonso.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sportsmole.co.uk – VIENNA, Both looking to ramp up their preparations for the upcoming World Cup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":47004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,92,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":946,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47005,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47003\/revisions\/47005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}