The game in the empty 100,000-spectator football field at Tehran’s Azadi Sports Complex began at 7:30 pm, Thursday night and the referee from Tajikistan was Gulmurdi Sadulo with his two Tajik assistant referees.

Head Coach Carlos Queiroz, whose legionnaire players were absent due to their commitments in EU and UAE football leagues, used a combination of some players in homeland Iran, and some legionnaires from Qatar league, as well as some young and even teen aged players.

As predicted, Nicaragua had nothing to present at the field from the beginning and the ball was most of the time in their half of the field, so that Iran’s goal keeper Alireza Beiranvand was most often just watching the game.

On the 15th minute of the 1st half and Iran’s first serious attack, the center pass of Omid Nurafkan reached Mahdi Torabi, who dribbled a Nicaraguan defense line players and scored the team’s first and only goal in this friendly match before the last versus Tunisia, on Wednesday, November 16th, before Iran’s first World Cup match in Qatar five days later, versus Britain.

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