Team Melli and Belarus draw blank

Team Melli played a goalless draw against Belarus in its first match in the Austrian training camp. A good number of Iranian supporters were at hand in Franz-Fekete-Stadion Kapfenberg, Austria to cheer the team compromising of mixed experience. Mehdi Sharifi won his first cap as Queiroz started him against Belarus and the young Sepahan striker did not disappoint as he combined well with Karim Ansarifard up front. Much of the play was limited in the middle of the field as neither of the goalkeepers had to sweat in the match until minute 28. Mohammadreza Khalatbary was in a position to put Iran ahead when he was in the 6 yard box ,  he dribbled his only marker to face the goalkeeper, but the pacy winger shot straight at the goalkeeper wasting a glorious chance. The rest of the half was uneventful with Andranik Teymourian displaying a commanding role in the middle of the field. haghighi-belarus The second half went the same as the first showing very much that this is a warm up match. In the 65th minute , Queiroz decided to have 4 substitutions to enhance the offensive power of the team. The result was nearly instantaneous as 3 of the subbed players combined to put Alireza Jahanbakhsh  only a few feet from the Belarus Goalkeeper. The NEC forward , decided to lob the ball instead of shooting past him, a move that made the keeper job easier as he grabbed the ball. Ansarifard--vs-Belarus Minute later , Bakhtiyar Rahmani found himself in a scoring position from a perfect cross by Heydari , but this ball was also wasted because of the wrong option. Rahmani decided to head the ball rather than control it and shoot. After those two chances, the match went into its earlier pace with neither of the teams creating any serious scoring chances.  

BELARUS vs. IRAN

0 - 0

Franz-Fekete-Stadion Kapfenberg, Austria

IRAN Alireza HAGHIGHI ; Pejman MONTAZERI , Mehrdad POOLADI, AmirHossein SADEGHI, Hossein MAHINI (65' Mohammadreza KHANZADEH), Andranik TEYMOURIAN (75' Javad NEKOUNAM), Ghassim HADDADIFAR (65' AliReza JAHANBAKHSH), Reza HAGHIGHI , MohamadReza KHALATBARY (65' Bakhtiyar RAHMANI, Mehdi SHARIFI ( 65' Khosrow HEYDARI) , Karim ANSARIFARD (80'  Ehsan HAJSAFY)