“I would rather face the powerful European teams but they are reluctant to come here. Meanwhile, we have to pay a lot of money to big teams to play with them and Iran’s Football Federation has no budget for this,” Ghotbi told reporters in the national team’s training session ahead of the warm-up match against Iceland which will be held at the Azadi Stadium on Tuesday.
He pointed out that Iceland’s football outfit is well-organized, adding, “I hope the warm-up match against Iceland helps our team gain harmony. We will also play Macedonia next week. The Macedonian team will come to Tehran with its main players. Macedonia is a quality team with quality players.”
Iran football team will play Iceland and Macedonia in preparation for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers.
Iran was drawn in Group Five of the 2010 Asian Cup Qualifiers along with Singapore, Thailand and Jordan. Iran leads the group with four points.