When the final whistle went in the first 0-0 draw of the World Cup, Iran’s players gathered in the middle of the pitch in Curitiba and applauded their fans while boos rang out around the stadium. But the Iran coach, Carlos Queiroz, insisted he was satisfied with the team’s performance and gave a powerful defence of their achievements in reaching the finals, as he sought to remind World Cup supporters of the reality of Iranian football.

“We are not celebrating a great day, we are not celebrating the draw, we are just celebrating our work,” Queiroz said. “We are celebrating the effort that the team did on the pitch for 90 minutes. I know that the people in Iran are very happy this evening.”

Iran have won only one of the 10 games they have played in the World Cup and they have not qualified for the finals of the tournament since 2006 but they reached this stage by defeating South Korea, making them the best team in Asia.  Of their starting XI, six play in the Iranian league, one in Kuwait, one in Qatar and two in the Premier League – at Fulham and Charlton Athletic. And their preparation has not been easy either, with the Iranian federation struggling to arrange friendlies and resources being limited. Players even discovered their kit was shrinking in the wash.

“Fans need to know what we did over three years to be here,” Queiroz said. “You have to judge the performance of our players based on the reality. You have to judge our players not as players from Liverpool, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, or Corinthians but as players that play in an amateur league. You need to understand that when you watch them on the pitch.

“I have the right to come here and tell you that, so that you know, otherwise you will not realise. I want you to judge what these players have done as a great achievement. In Asia, we qualified number one, with South Korea behind us. We’re ranked ahead of Iran and South Korea and this is a huge achievement. My players deserve civility and respect for what they have done.”

In the front row of the press room, Nigerian journalists were gathered and Queiroz told them: “If you want to play a friendly, you go to London and you play a friendly. For us, it does not work like that. We have problems [just] to arrange matches and that is why I am very happy with what we have done. I think football people understand what we have done. Most of our players play in an amateur league. Our players deserve respect, OK?”

There was respect for Iran from Nigeria. Both Mikel John Obi and the coach, Stephen Keshi, said they had been frustrated by Iran – describing them as a team that sat deep and never sought to attack – but admitted that doing so was legitimate, even if Keshi did notice a bit of “unexpected physicality”. “Fair play to them; they knew what they were doing,” Mikel said.

Like Queiroz, Keshi too was keen to bring a little realism to the evening. “Criticism is part of the game. We don’t always have patience, we don’t always understand football. In my country people want to win all the time and they don’t understand that it doesn’t always work that way,” he said.

And asked if he had the solution for Nigeria’s second game, Keshi replied: “I’m not God, I’m just the coach.”