{"id":54913,"date":"2026-05-21T19:45:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=54913"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:45:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:45:39","slug":"i-am-a-son-of-iran-azmoun-backs-his-nation-at-world-cup-despite-missing-out-on-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/05\/21\/i-am-a-son-of-iran-azmoun-backs-his-nation-at-world-cup-despite-missing-out-on-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I am a son of Iran’: Azmoun backs his nation at World Cup despite missing out on squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flashscore.com – DUBAI, Dropped Iran striker Sardar Azmoun has posted a heartfelt message on social media proclaiming his love for \u2060his country and wishing the World Cup squad well at the tournament without him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Azmoun, who is his country’s second-leading scorer of all time, \u200cwas left out of coach Amir Ghalenoei’s preliminary squad for the tournament on Saturday.<\/p>\n

State news \u200cagency IRNA said that Azmoun was injured but media reports in March \u200csaid he had been expelled from the national team after posting a picture \u200con social media of a meeting with Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid \u200cAl Maktoum.<\/p>\n

Iran has attacked the United Arab Emirates, where Azmoun plays his club football, with drones and missiles during the war triggered by air attacks on the Islamic Republic \u200cby the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n

Accusations of disloyalty \u2060in the Iranian media at that \u200ctime clearly rankled with Azmoun and he addressed them in Wednesday’s post.<\/p>\n

“I want to \u200bspeak from the bottom of my heart about some things that many people may not know, or about certain misunderstandings that may \u200bhave led some to judge me too quickly,” the 31-year-old wrote.<\/p>\n

“I have always played for my national team with pride. When we won, I was \u2060proud of myself and \u200bmy teammates. When we didn’t, I was more upset than anyone else in the world, just like them.<\/p>\n

“I love football, and I love the good and deserving people of my country, Iran. People whose kindness and unwavering support have \u200calways given me energy.”<\/p>\n

Azmoun, who is part of Iran’s Turkmen ethnic minority, said as a teenager he had received a “very large financial offer” to represent another country.<\/p>\n

“My answer was this: ‘I am a son of Iran, and I want to play for my people and make them happy’,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“I promised myself that every time I played for Iran, I would give everything I had to bring joy to the people who follow football with love — especially the children in the most remote towns and villages who celebrate \u200cour victories.<\/p>\n

“No matter where I play football, my identity, my heart, and \u200bmy pride are Iran.”<\/p>\n

Azmoun concluded by wishing the World Cup squad success \u200cat the tournament.<\/p>\n

“I wish success and pride for the players, coaching staff, and especially Amir Khan, at the World Cup,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“Go out there and smash it, my friends, make the hearts of the people of Iran happy.”<\/p>\n

The Iran squad are currently at a training camp \u2060in Turkey, from where they will fly \u2060to their tournament base in \u200cthe United States in the first week of June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flashscore.com – DUBAI, Dropped Iran striker Sardar Azmoun has posted a heartfelt message on social…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":54914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,212,93,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54913","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"],"views":106,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54913","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=54913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54915,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54913\/revisions\/54915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}