Iran will advance to knockout round in Russia, says Queiroz

Bengaluru, March 23: Iran caught the eye of all football pundits with an impressive show in the 2014 FIFA World Cup group-tie in Brazil where they held former champions Argentina at bay for more than 90 minutes before falling to a Lionel Messi stunner in the stoppage time.

Though they could not advance to the knockout stage of the quadrennial extravaganza in Brazil, expectations are high from Team Melli as the Road to Russia beckons.

Iran head coach Carlos Queiroz, who led his team to a second successive World Cup, believes his team is better prepared now than it was four years ago and thinks they can make it past the group stage for sure.

"We've more solutions and are better prepared. We've more experience, especially now that we've more players in Europe. The competition in (the) FIFA (World Cup) is very intense and difficult but we want to do better," Queiroz was quoted as saying in the Asian Football Confederation website.

We ask 🇮🇷's Carlos Queiroz about his opinion on whether this @TeamMelliIran is better than the 2014 squad. And this is what he has to say! pic.twitter.com/RK4hJ8sz2q

— AFC (@theafcdotcom) March 22, 2018

Pressed further as to what the target in Brazil would be the Portuguese, who was assistant to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United where he was part of three Premier League triumphs, made his intentions pretty clear.

"As coaches, we always want more and we want to make to the second stage in Russia, that's the target."

And to achieve that targets, plans have already been put in place by the man, who assisted Ferguson when United won the 2008 Champions League.

"In order to that, it is important to put in place good preparations, especially for our local-based players," added Queiroz, whose team will take on Greece, Lithuania and Turkey in friendlies as part of the final round of preparations for the Russia World Cup which begins on June 14.

Iran have always been a force to be reckoned with at the Asian level. But they have failed to translate that form into the international level and fitness of the players has been attributed as one of the factors.

It was one of the main factors that led to Iran's failure to advance the knockout stage in Brazil as their players could not recover in time for the third group match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was played after the Argentina tie.

However, Queiroz, who has coached his his native country as well as La Liga giants Real Madrid believes his team is physically much stronger now and have moved on from the disappointments of Brazil.

"There were plenty of learning experiences from Brazil. We learned we needed to better prepare our players to compete particularly in a short period of time. We were able to cope in the first game, and in the second game, we had a fantastic game against Argentina," added the 65-year-old.

"But our national team players were not able to recover from the second to third game because we were totally exhausted after the two games and this was one of the key points we took away and are working on after four years."

In Russia, Iran are drawn along with former world champions Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Iran begin their campaign on June 15th against Morocco.

(With AFC inputs)