{"id":52092,"date":"2024-10-08T14:12:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T21:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=52092"},"modified":"2024-10-08T14:12:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T21:12:02","slug":"wcq-2026-uzbekistan-vs-iran-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2024\/10\/08\/wcq-2026-uzbekistan-vs-iran-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"WCQ 2026: Uzbekistan vs Iran [Preview]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sportsmole.co.uk – TASHKENT, Both fighting to keep their 100% third-round records intact, Group A pacesetters Uzbekistan and Iran will meet at Tashkent’s Milliy Stadion for an AFC World Cup qualifier on Thursday night.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The White Wolves came out on top of a five-goal thriller during their most recent fixture, whilst Team Melli secured a narrow success over the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Failing to qualify for the World Cup on seven occasions since becoming a FIFA member as an independent nation, Uzbekistan are well on course to ensuring that it is eighth time lucky, with Thursday’s hosts enjoying a productive September international break, beating both North Korea and most recently Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n

The White Wolves found themselves 2-1 down at Stadion Im on September 10 and staring a maiden loss of the third round in the face, but goals either side of the half-time whistle from Khusniddin Alikulov and Oston Urunov secured a comeback victory for the visitors to Bishkek.<\/p>\n

Collecting six points from their opening two matches in the section, Uzbekistan are currently leading the way in the Group A standings, already three points ahead of the United Arab Emirates in third and five better off compared to Asian Cup holders Qatar, who are languishing down in fifth.<\/p>\n

Netting the White Wolves’ opening goal of the contest against Kyrgyzstan last month, striker Eldor Shomurodov is Uzbekistan’s most recognisable face to followers of the European scene, with the 29-year-old featuring on four occasions in Serie A for Roma so far this season.<\/p>\n

The White Wolves have not lost a match in normal time since a friendly clash with the USA in September 2023, when efforts from Timothy Weah, Ricardo Pepi and Christian Pulisic secured a comfortable three-goal success for Gregg Berhalter’s Stars and Stripes in St Louis, Missouri.<\/p>\n

Iran are on track to make their fourth straight appearance at the World Cup finals following a flawless September international break, during which they managed a pair of 1-0 victories over Kyrgyzstan and United Arab Emirates, meaning that Thursday’s visitors are level on points with Uzbekistan in Group A after two matches.<\/p>\n

Keeping back-to-back clean sheets last month with relative ease, former Royal Antwerp and Boavista goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand is a member of Team Melli who has experience of playing at Qatar 2022, with the 32-year-old now part of a group of elder statesmen within the squad.<\/p>\n

Following Iran’s disappointing group-stage exit at the last World Cup two years ago, Amir Ghalenoei replaced Carlos Queiroz in the Iranian dugout, with the 60-year-old winning a staggering 20 of his 24 official matches in charge so far, losing on just the single occasion.<\/p>\n

With the AFC now receiving eight automatic places for the World Cup – double the amount on offer for the confederation at the 2022 edition of the tournament – Team Melli are red-hot favourites to secure a spot in North America, where they will be hoping to progress past the group stage for the first time.<\/p>\n

Iran and Uzbekistan were Group E counterparts in the second round of qualification earlier in the international cycle, with both matches between Team Melli and the White Wolves ending in a share of the points.<\/p>\n

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

Helping to inspire a second-half comeback at Kyrgyzstan last time out, the likes of Abdulla Abdullaev and Azizbek Turgunbaev will be pushing for spots in Uzbekistan’s starting XI.<\/p>\n

Despite conceding two in Bishkek, the White Wolves should stick with a centre-back trio of Rustamjon Ashurmatov, Umar Eshmuradov and goalscorer Alikulov.<\/p>\n

A threatening focal point for the Iranian attack, Inter Milan star Mehdi Taremi will start as the lone striker for the visitors on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

There is set to be a pair of ex-Premier League players in the Team Melli XI, with Saman Ghoddos and Alireza Jahanbakhsh likely to feature.<\/p>\n

Keeping a clean sheet at the United Arab Emirates on September 10, Iran should continue with a central-defensive duo of Shoja Khalilzadeh and Hossein Kanaani.<\/p>\n

Uzbekistan possible starting lineup:<\/strong>
\nYusupov; Alidzhanov, Alikulov, Ashurmatov, Eshmuradov, Nasrulloev; Khamrobekov, Shukurov, Masharipov; Urunov, Shomurodov<\/p>\n

Iran possible starting lineup:<\/strong>
\nBeiranvand; Hardani, Kanaani, Khalilzadeh, Mohammadi; Noorafkan, Ezatolahi; Jahanbakhsh, Ghoddos, Ghayedi; Taremi<\/p>\n

Prediction: <\/strong>Uzbekistan 1-2 Iran<\/p>\n

Drawing each of their last two competitive meetings, we are expecting a hard-fought affair between the Group A pacesetters in Tashkent on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Iran’s record since the arrival of head coach Ghalenoei in March 2023 has been exceptional, and we envisage Team Melli earning a narrow victory in Uzbekistan to leapfrog the hosts in the section standings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sportsmole.co.uk – TASHKENT, Both fighting to keep their 100% third-round records intact, Group A pacesetters…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":52093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":1241,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52092","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=52092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52094,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52092\/revisions\/52094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}