Mirzapour blames injuries

IRIB - The keeper of the national soccer team, Ebrahim Mirzapour, blamed injuries of some players and unavailability of some others in training camps for Iran's poor performance in the Germany 2006 World Cup.

"At the Asian games we preformed better than the world cup because then all players showed up in the training camps and all of them were physically better shaped", he told IRIB during fligth back to home.

Three key players of the Iranian team, Ali Karimi, Vahid Hashemian and Fereydon Zandi, were suffering injuries when the world cup started, he added.