21-member Iranian team arrives in Goa

MARGAO: A 21-member Iran national team arrived here on Tuesday to play in the FIFA U-17 World Cup.

Iran arrived in Goa at 2.30 pm by Qatar Airways.

Iran, who are placed along with Germany, Guinea and Costa Rica in Group ‘C’, will play their first match against Guinea on October 7.

After failing to qualify for its first eight tournaments, Iran competed at their first FIFA U-17 World Cup at Trinidad and Tobago 2001, were they suffered three defeats and finished bottom of their group.

Eight years later, the Asian side participated in Nigeria 2009, where they advanced from their pool, but lost in the round of 16 to Uruguay, 1-2 after extra time.

At UAE 2013, Iran again reached the knockout stages, but again came unstruck, losing 1-4 to Nigeria, the eventual winners of the competition.

Iran topped Group A at the 2016 AFC U-16 Championship, due to a better goal difference than second-placed UAE. They then made certain of their place at the U-17 World Cup by comfortably disposing of Vietnam (5-0) in the quarterfinals, before beating Korea DPR in the semi-finals via a penalty shoot-out, following a 1-1 draw.

In the final versus Iraq, which failed to produce a goal after 120 minutes of football, the Iranians were involved in another shoot out but this time they ended up on the wrong end of the scoreline (3-4).