PFDC - ISTANBUL, Iran coach Carlos Queiroz rued the many missed scoring opportunities after the 0-1 friendly match defeat to Albania on Sunday evening, however, still expressed happiness about Team Melli's performance.

"We had five good scoring opportunities, three of them were one on one situations with the keeper, but unfortunately we couldn't score", the Portugese told reporters after the match.

"Albania only had two chances in the whole match, so it was an unnecessary loss for us.

"It was a good game, which we will have to analyze in regards to our strengths and weaknesses", Queiroz was quoted by Iranian news agency ISNA.

"I was especially satisfied with the performance of our defenders, but also that we were able to pressurize to opponent for the full 90 minutes.

"We faced a good team with many European legionnaires and we managed to dominate them throughout the game, however, due to the unpredictability of football they somehow won."

The former Real Madrid and Portugal boss also explained why some regular starters - Mehdi Rahmati, Hadi Aghily, Khosro Heydari, Mehrdad Pouladi, Ali Karimi and Gholamreza Rezaei - found themselves on the bench initially and also explained why Omid Nazari of Ängelholms FF didn't debut for Iran.

"We didn't use some of the usual starters in order rest them, especially those who were engaged in Asian Champions League recently.

"I wanted to field Omid Nazari but unfortunately FIFA didn't deliver his player pass yet."

Eventually, Queiroz also explained his decision fielding Alireza Haghighi of Rubin Kazan as starting goalkeeper today.

"In the past matches, Shahab Gordan, Mohsen Forouzan and Mehdi Rahmati played, so this time Haghighi got his chance."

The players will have Monday off before training will be resumed on Tuesday.

Iran will continue their training camp until June 1, before travelling to Tashkent for the World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan on June 3.