BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

05/02/2007

Iran to play Belarus in friendly

Iran will clash with Belarus in a friendly here at the Azadi Stadium on Wednesday.

Coach Amir Ghalenoiee has called up 23 players for the match though stars Ali Karimi and Vahid Hashemian are not on the list due to prior club commitments in the Bundesliga.

Ghalenoiee hinted that captain Mehdi Mahdavikia could also skip the match to be with Hamburg SV.

The match is part of Iran's warm-up for the 2007 Asian Cup, which runs through July 7-29. Iran has been grouped with Malaysia, Uzbekistan and China and will be based in Kuala Lumpur.

Iran is currently 37th in the FIFA world rankings while Belarusis 70th.

Squad:

Hasan Roodbarian, Vahid Taleblu, Rahman Rezaei, Hadi Aghili, Amir Hossein Sadeghi, Piruz Ghorbani, Alireza Nikbakht Vahedi, Morteza Asadi, Javad Nekounam, Hossein Kazemi, Mehdi Mahdavikia, Hossein Kaebi, Javad Kazemian, Andranik Teymourian, Reza Enayati, Rasool Khatibi, Mehdi Rajabzadeh, Ebrahim Sadeghi, Hadi Shakoori, Mohamad Nouri, Mehrzad Madanchi, Pejman Montazeri and Maziar Zare.

Source:

http://english.people.com.cn/200702/05/eng20070205_347660.html