Iran’s football team scored two goals against Wales on this Friday, reviving hopes that the team can advance to the next round of the games.
On this Friday, and after a heavy loss of the game against England the week before, Iran’s football team had a fantastic performance against Wales, beating the rival 2-0. The strong win by the Iranian players left the Welsh in a make-or-break state in their final match against England, which means they have to win the British team if they want to have a chance for going to the next round of the World Cup games.
Iranian football star Sardar Azmoun twice hit the post early in the second half as Iran set the tempo and Wales rode its luck, and it looked as if both teams would share a point each before Cheshmi opened the scoring – sending Iranian fans into celebrations and muting the Welsh contingent.
Rouzbeh Cheshmi struck from distance to brilliantly give Iran the lead in the 98th minute, while Ramin Rezaeian sealed the win in the 101st minute, securing Iran its first points of the tournament.
Both goals came after Wales goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey had been sent off in the second half for a rash challenge outside his area, becoming the first player in this tournament to be shown a red card.
Good to mention that in the 84th minute, Mehdi Taremi chased a long ball through the center, and Wales goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey came rushing out of his area and crashed into the Iran forward. The foul made Referee Mario Escobar of Guatemala to give Hennessey a red card for stopping a promising attack for the Iranian striker.
Iran is appearing at this World Cup under the shadow of domestic turmoil, which sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who allegedly died after being detained by Iran’s morality police for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.
Iran deserved the win, Wales coach admits
In the press conference after the game, Wales coach Robert Page admitted his team had fallen well below the standards they set for themselves and that Iran deserved to win. The defeat to Iran has now put Wales on the brink of World Cup elimination.
“This is a hard one to take. I’ve said to them before every game: ‘Go and show the world what you show us every day,’ and that is not a true reflection of that team.” Page said.
He also noted that Iranian players did very well and that his team “got their true rewards today, we deserved that defeat and Iran deserved to win. if we’d met our standards, we’d have been alright. And if you do that in top competitions, you get punished.”
Asked about the England game, Page said: “We want to finish the competition on a high. It’s out of our hands for going through, but we want to finish with a good performance and a win. We’re low at the moment, but we’ll get them back up tomorrow for a tough game to finish with.”
Iran’s coach Carlos Queiroz also had his press conference after beating Wales, where he said that his team had a “perfect match today, and everyone showed a very high character, a good unity was in Iran’s national team and today “we returned to our roots.”
Queiroz also added that “we had to overcome the bad feelings of the previous defeat. The victory against Wales is Iran’s third-ever victory at the FIFA World Cup, after previous wins against the United States in 1998 and Morocco in 2018.
