{"id":54243,"date":"2025-12-07T07:51:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=54243"},"modified":"2025-12-07T07:51:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:51:04","slug":"irans-amir-ghalenoei-has-sharp-focus-on-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2025\/12\/07\/irans-amir-ghalenoei-has-sharp-focus-on-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Amir Ghalenoei has sharp focus on next year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thepeachreview.com – WASHINGTON D.C., Iran\u2019s national team coach Ardeshir \u201cAmir\u201d Ghalenoei was present for the World Cup Final Draw that took place yesterday, December 5, at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Initially, we were told Iran wouldn\u2019t have any representatives available during the mixed zone. Then, like magic, Ghalenoei appeared with a translator, ready to take questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Islamic Republic of Iran (IR Iran) was placed in Group G alongside Egypt, Belgium, and New Zealand. Including the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Iran has qualified for seven World Cups (1978, 1998, 2006, 2014, 2018, 2022, 2026). A Group G placement also guarantees at least one match in the United States.<\/p>\n

It was inevitable that Ghalenoei would be questioned about his attendance. The past few months have been riddled with visa issues and threats of a boycott, to the point where, like I previously stated, some officials couldn\u2019t tell us whether Iran had a delegation available for questioning. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here to talk about technical matters, about the football,\u201d he said via translator. \u201cIf you have any technical questions, I\u2019d be happy to answer.\u201d All of our questions were translated from Farsi into English.<\/p>\n

Iran faces strong competition in their group with Egypt and Belgium. The Egyptians sit 34th in the world according to the Coca-Cola\/FIFA rankings, but are one of the top three teams in Africa, just behind Senegal and Morocco. Belgium is ranked 8th in the world and is the sixth-best European team in the tournament. Spain, France, England, Portugal, and the Netherlands are ahead of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you are well aware, the football has improved, and all the teams are now closer together in terms of quality,\u201d Ghalenoei said. \u201cWe\u2019re also in a good group. Tomorrow evening we\u2019ll be aware of the place we\u2019re going to play (the cities), and according to that, we\u2019ll prepare our team for the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

After receiving repeated questions surrounding visas and safety, the translator reiterated that they were there to answer questions about football. So I asked what Iranian fans in America would want to know: Are there any friendlies planned in the U.S. next year before the start of the tournament?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were expecting the draw to happen, then decide according to the teams that are available to play,\u201d Ghalenoei began. \u201cWe are going to play with two teams from seat one, and also two teams from seats three and four for the next FIFA international window.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach Amir Ghalenoei already has his eyes set firmly on the spring, looking to sharpen his side before the start of the tournament. According to his words, two teams from seat one would be any two from Mexico, Canada, Brazil, USA, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Argentina, Portugal, or England. Two teams from seats three and four widen the potential expansively, with playoffs yet to have teams placed. But from those already seeded, the two teams could potentially come from the Korea Republic, Qatar, Switzerland, Haiti, Scotland, Australia, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Norway, Austria, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Ghana, or Panama.<\/p>\n

Their last three World Cup appearances (2014, 2018, 2022) saw them eliminated in the group stage. With a new vision and roster, \u201cTeam Melli\u201d is looking forward to putting politics aside and getting straight to the football. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thepeachreview.com – WASHINGTON D.C., Iran\u2019s national team coach Ardeshir \u201cAmir\u201d Ghalenoei was present for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":54244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,92,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54243","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":1446,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54243","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=54243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54245,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54243\/revisions\/54245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}