After beating the Lebanese national football team on Tuesday evening, the Iranian football squad became one of the finalists of this preliminary round of the 2015 Australia Asian Nations Football Cup.
In the home game, played in Tehran’s Azadi Football Stadium the Lebanese side had received five goals, ending nine-one in the total score of the two games, the Islamic republic news agency reported.
With this victory the team of the Portuguese Head Coach Carlos Queiroz has now 13 points from five games, enough to rank qualified as one of the teams that would compete in Australia in 2015 for the Asian Football Cup.
The Iranian team’s goals were scored by Amir-Hossein Sadeqi in 39th, Ashkan Dezhagah in 51st, Javad Nekounam in 55th (from the penalty point), and Reza Qouchan-Nezhad in 64th minute, while Lebanon’s single goal was scored by Ali Heidar in the 79th minute of the game.
The game was played in the Lebanese capital city amid full security measures after the deadly Tuesday terrorist attack in front of the Iranian Embassy, in which the Iranian cultural attaché was among the dead victims.
There were no spectators at the football stadium, which was one of the security measures adopted by the Lebanese organizers of the game.
The Iranian team’s head coach had proposed to cancel the game after the Tuesday terrorist attack to safeguard his players’ lives.
The Iranian national football team’s last game in this preliminary round of the Asian Nations Football Cup will be played on March 5th versus Kuwait, whose result will not change any of the two teams’ positions.
The final round of the Asian Nations Football Cup will be played in Australia in the summer of 2015.
