IRI hope to surprise Mexico,Portugal

IRIB- Iran hopes to surprise Mexico and Portugal, the two top teams in group D at the World Cup, the Head of the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) Mohammad Dadkan said Wednesday.

"Mexico and Portugal are definitely better teams but this does not mean that we would have no chance against them," Dadkan told ISNA news agency.

Iran will play against Mexico in Nuremberg, Portugal in Frankfurt and Angola in leipzig.

"We have skilful players who could change the course of a game and cause some surprises," Dadkan said while hoping that Iran would reach the second round for the first time in its World Cup history (1978 and 1998).

The Croatian Coach of the Iranian team, Branco Ivankovic, also expressed optimism that Iran could reach the next round.

"We have no pressure and are optimistic that we show a decent performance in Germany and surprise our opponents," he said on state television.

Iran's World Cup squad is dominated by the German Bundesliga quartet Mehdi Mahdavikia (Hamburg), Ali Karimi (Bayern Munich), Vahid Hashemian (Hanover) and Fereydoun Zandi (Kaiserslautern).