Iranian football team blanks India in FIFA World Cup qualifier

Iran’s national soccer team has defeated India to register a much-deserved win in an AFC Second Round qualifier for 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Team Melli thrashed its host 3-0 at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in the southern city of Bangalore on Tuesday. The Iranian outfit had pummeled Guam 6-0 in its second Group D showdown at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium on September 3, nearly three months after an away 1-1 tie against Turkmenistan in Daşoguz.

The Persians started the match in a very convincing fashion, and applied a spell of pressure on India’s goal since the beginning moments of the match.

Iran’s Sardar Azmoun, who currently plays for the Russian football club Rostov on loan from Tatarstan’s Rubin Kazan, got hit by an Indian player in the fourth minute and lay on the ground in agony for a while until the medical team ran on the pitch to attend to him.

Iranians made a mistake in the seventh minute, and lost the possession of the ball in the middle of the field. India’s Sunil Chhetri was quick to take a shot at Iran’s goal, but it went wide.

Five minutes later, Ehsan Hajsafi raced towards the hosts’ goal and tried his chance with a long-range shot but Indian goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu pulled off a save.

In the 14th minute, Iranians had two golden opportunities to place the ball into the back of the net but they squandered the chances.

The Persians maintained their pressure on the Indian team until the 28th minute when Azmoun received a pass set up by captain Andranik Teymourian and made it one for the visitors through a header. Iranians went into the breather with the one-goal lead.

Iran came out strong in the second half, and Teymourian made use of a slip in India’s shaky defense three minutes after the break to score the second goal for Iranians in the 47th minute.

Three minutes later, Mehdi Taremi received a neat pass and shot the ball past India’s goalie to make it 3-0 for Iran.

Iranian players, Ashkan Dejagah in particular, sought to score more goals in the remaining minutes of the match, but were unsuccessful.

Iran will take on Oman it its next 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying match at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in the Omani capital Muscat on October 8.

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