{"id":4602,"date":"2017-06-17T17:08:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T08:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2017-06-17T17:10:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T08:10:17","slug":"iran-set-nine-records-qualify-2018-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2017\/06\/17\/iran-set-nine-records-qualify-2018-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran set nine records as they qualify for 2018 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Niloufar Momeni<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It might have been a late weeknight for Iranians, but all were surely gluing onto the pitch either from Azadi stadium in Tehran or at the comfort of their homes through their TV sets.<\/p>\n

Iran national football team hosted Uzbekistan on Monday night, on their eighth games of their World Cup qualification campaign.<\/p>\n

A victory over the Uzbeks would help Iran directly qualify for the next year World Cup finals. A draw or a loss would rather complicate the matter, leaving it to South Korea, Uzbekistan and Syria teams to decide the top 2 teams of the Group A.<\/p>\n

In an intense match that saw Iran holding on to the possession for much of the game. Team Melli scored an opportunistic goal by the talented youngster, Sardar Azmoun before wasted a golden chance to double the lead on the penalty spot.<\/p>\n

However, Iran sealed the all-important victory in the last 5 minutes of the match by Taremi. The team secured a direct qualification to World Cup games as the winner of Group A.<\/p>\n

Throughout the World Cup qualification campaign, Iran had set nine records, which made the qualification ever juicier for the fans.<\/p>\n

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Iran is the first Asian team to qualify for 2018 World Cup. The fate of Group B winners, Japan, Saudi Arabia or Australia is still up in the air with two games remaining.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iran-Uzbekistan match was Iran\u2019s 11th consecutive clean sheet in the third-round qualifying. No other Asian team can achieve this.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iran has gone through eight matches in the third round of the AFC World Cup qualification without conceding a goal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This is also the first time Iran qualify for consecutive World Cup tournaments.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Carlos Queiroz sealed his fourth World Cup qualification. The former Manchester United coach has successfully led South Africa, Portugal, and Iran (twice) to World Cup finals.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iran recorded highest total points: During the 2018 World Cup qualification campaign, Iran gained a record of 12 victories in 16 games with no defeat and 4 draws. Team Melli also scored 34 goals, while conceding\u00a0only. With 40 points amassed, Iran not only surpassed any other Asian team so far but also broke their own record in previous World Cup qualification campaigns.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iran squad is the youngest among Asian teams, with an average age of just 26.37,\u00a0in comparison to Japan (27.12) and South Korean (27.25).<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Earliest qualification: This is the second time Iran have become the first team to\u00a0qualify in Asia region.\u00a0The other was in 1978 when Team Melli was the sole representative of Asia and Oceana region in that year’s World Cup tournament.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iran recorded a higher winning ratio than Brazil, the first team that qualified for the 2018 World Cup. Brazil\u2019s winning ratio stands at 71%, while Iran’s stands at 75%. Also, the average point recorded by Brazil has been 2.35 points per game, while Iran\u2019s average point has been 2.5 points per game.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Niloufar Momeni It might have been a late weeknight for Iranians, but all were surely gluing onto the pitch either from Azadi stadium in Tehran or at the comfort of their homes through their TV sets. Iran national football team hosted Uzbekistan on Monday night, on their eighth games of their World Cup qualification campaign. A victory over the Uzbeks would help Iran directly qualify for the next year World Cup finals. A draw or a loss would rather complicate the matter, leaving it to South Korea, Uzbekistan and Syria teams to decide the top 2 teams of the Group A. In an intense match that saw Iran holding … Continue reading “Iran set nine records as they qualify for 2018 World Cup”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":4520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[637,204,85],"class_list":["post-4602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran","tag-2018-world-cup","tag-featured","tag-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}