Dejagah, Queiroz and Gaspar: “We Can Do It”

Today’s the day. Iran must beat an already eliminated Bosnia-Herzegovina in Salvador to have have any chance of becoming the first Iranian team to progress beyond the group stage of the World Cup finals.

Team Melli also needs Nigeria to lose to Argentina in Porto Alegre, which is probable. But first, the team must address its own main issue: scoring.

Iran drew 0-0 with Nigeria in its opening match and was denied a second goalless draw by Lionel Messi's injury-time wonder strike for Argentina. Iran played well in both games and won credit for its compact defensive style. But now the team must score, and against a side with whom coach Carlos Queiroz has history.

Usually, a history with Queiroz implies some sort of problem. The experienced coach is outspoken and stands up against any perceived injustice. In the case of today's game, against a fledgling country, it's a positive.

In 2000, Bosnia-Herzegovina played a humanitarian game for orphans of the Balkans war against an international All-Star XI. Carlos Queiroz was chosen to manage the All Stars, who won the game through a Roberto Baggio penalty.

"I have a strong history with Bosnia-Herzegovina and have friends there," explained Queiroz when I spoke to him in the Tehran hotel the team uses as its base. "Not only was I was in charge of the international team, but I went again with Portugal."

When he returned it was for a more competitive game, as his Portugal side drew with Bosnia- Herzegovina in a play-off for the 2010 World Cup finals.

"We stopped them reaching the World Cup finals for the first time," he said. "I was sad for them, but I had to do my job, this is football. Four years later they reached the World Cup finals, a great achievement for a small country (the population is just 4.6 million, compared with Iran’s 76 million) new to international football. And now I am in charge of an Iran team that will play them. I'm really looking forward to it."

Iran need to win their second ever game in the World Cup finals. Their first victory was in 1998 against the USA.

It may come as a surprise to those familiar with international geo-political relations, but the Iranian national team's assistant manager was born in Connecticut, United States.

Friends and family advised Dan Gaspar, 58, not to follow Queiroz to Tehran in 2011 when he took the Iran job. But such is his respect for his boss, you sense that he would have followed him to Mars.

Gaspar has loved his time with Iran and was realistic when I spoke to him in the mixed zone after Saturday's defeat to Argentina "I'm extremely proud of our team," he told me. "I don't think even the most optimistic Iranian fan would have imagined that we would take Argentina to be 0-0 after 90 minutes.

"Our players worked hard in South Africa and Austria to prepare for this tournament. There are 32 teams who are ranked highly and respected highly. We're not. We came here to earn respect and we're earning that. Our expectations were different to those of Argentina. They came here to win the World Cup. That's beyond our reality.

"We didn't have the possession of the ball, but we had the best opportunities of the match. We'd love to entertain and play the beautiful game, but you have to have quality to do that and that's not us."

"We'll have to recover our players, not just physically, but more importantly mentally," Gaspar said, looking forward to tonight’s game in Brazil’s northeast. "This team have been mentally strong with little support. In Iran the players are technically solid, but they're far from being at the level of the international arena where they need to be."

Speaking to me on Saturday, star player Ashkan Dejagah explained the team's current philosophy.  

"The manager tried to train us to defend well and I think this is the most important thing," the Fulham winger—who says he would prefer to stay in the Premier League even if it means leaving Fulham—said after the Argentina defeat. "We defended well and we still have a chance to go through, but we need to score. We believe we can go through and we created several very good chances against Argentina."

Though born in Tehran, Dejagah moved to Berlin aged one and grew up playing with Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng and Manuel Neuer. He's one of the players from Iran's vast diaspora who Queiroz recruited. He thinks Iran's experience in Brazil has been very positive.

 "I hope we showed the world that Iran can play football, even against teams like Argentina. And we've got a better chance than England or Spain of going through," he smiled. And he could have added Italy.

Critics thought Iran would be the first team to leave Brazil. They intend to stay around a little longer, thanks.