World Cup 2022 Group B Team Guides: Iran

Nobody’s calling this the Group of Death. Maybe they should – it’s the only one in which all four teams are ranked inside FIFA’s Top 20.

Here is everything to know about Iran:

Coach: Carlos Queiroz

Highest finish: Group stage (1930)

2018 finish: Group stage

FOX Bet odds: +75000

Key players: Sardar Azmoun, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Mehdi Taremi

What we’re excited to watch: The group finale. Not only is it a rematch of the 1998 meeting between the longtime political adversaries (a game Team Melli won), it could determine which nation advances to the second round.

What success look like: The answer is obvious for a team that hasn’t survived the group stage in five previous tries.

Achilles’ heel: Themselves. Iran has a long history of imploding at the World Cup, which is part of the reason this soccer-loving nation filled with natural talent has never made it past the first round.

X-Factor: Queiroz. Iran fired former coach Dragan Skocic just four months before Qatar 2022 and replaced him with the Portuguese manager, who previously led Team Melli from 2011-19. It’s a risk; Queiroz bombed out of his last two national team jobs, with Egypt and Colombia.

Read more on the World Cup:

Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports. Before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he was a staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.