The Iranian Football Federation announced on Tuesday their first World Cup warm-up match on March 1 against fellow finalists Ukraine. Federation chairman Mohammad Dadkan said, "According to FIFA's timetable set for the qualifying teams, we can play four official friendly games. Two other matches will be played during our training camp in Austria. And the last friendly game will be played before taking up residence in (Friedrichshafen) Germany,"

Iran face Mexico, Angola and Portugal in Group D of FIFA World Cup Germany 2006, and will be hoping their foreign-based players, most notably Bayern Munich’s Ali Karimi, SV Hamburg’s Mehdi Mahdavikia , and Vahid Hashemian of Hanover 96, will provide the guile and experience required to see them having any chances of progressing to the later stages of the tournament.

Speaking about the chances of the three-time Asian Champions in the forthcoming finals, Croatian coach Branko Ivankovic said, "Our problem will be in adapting to the different styles - European, African and Latin American. I hope our players will learn how to respond to the different problems."

"The favourite is clearly Portugal, they will be in the semi-finals," he continued, adding, "Mexico are a good side, I was very impressed by them at the Confederations Cup. Angola is a new team to me. They have a lot of enthusiasm and a game which is difficult to understand."

Ivankovic’s pragmatism is understandable, Team Melli face three very different, and difficult teams. If their rising young stars and talismanic hitman Ali Daei, who finished top scorer in the Asian Zone with nine goals, can conjure some magic, they may be in with a chance.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | google | yahoo | technorati