Iran confident of getting the three goals they need

Having admitted after Saturday's game that the result had caused him "considerable sadness," Iran's manager Miroslav Blazevic was back to his confident best yesterday when he predicted that the Irish would be lucky to leave Iran with only a 3-0 defeat to weigh down their hearts on the long journey home.

"If they are lucky they will concede only three," he beamed before adding: "I'm confident that we can win this game by more than the required margin."

The 66-year-old from Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose job is likely to be under threat if his side doesn't overturn the 2-0 deficit, said he was surprised that the Irish had not caused his defence more problems in Dublin. "They didn't cause us as many difficulties as they would have liked or we would have expected," he said.

The loss of Roy Keane for what will be Blazevic's 100th game as an international manager was, he chortled, "like an answer to my prayers. He did not play brilliantly in Dublin but his absence will nevertheless be a big disadvantage for his team here in Tehran."

Blazevic wasn't the only one talking up the home side's chances of turning the tie around this afternoon. Ali Karimi, the technically gifted Iranian who twice failed to capitalise on fine opportunities to grab an away goal, insisted that things could be different for him and his country second time around.

"The Irish defence wasn't as strong as I thought it would be," said Karimi who turned 23 last Thursday and is coveted by a number of European clubs. "They played well as a team but our players have the better individual skills. They are poor on the ground and that will be a problem for them here in Tehran."

Karimi admits that he should have done better with his own chances on Saturday though he said Shay Given did well to make the save on each occasion. But, he says, "I won't let those chances worry me. I'm sure that I'll get more here than I did in Dublin and I'm confident that this time I can take them."

The midfielder, who is employed as striker by Blazevic, also mentioned the poor state of the pitch in Dublin as having contributed to his difficulties with controlling the ball. "The grass is better here in Tehran and I am sure that on it I can score at least one against Given."

Iran's top scorer, Ali Daei, insists he is just as confident regarding his side's chances of progressing to next summer's finals. The 32-year-old reckons that the shift from defence to attack by Iran will mean that he and Karimi will see more of the ball.

"We had only two chances in the whole of the game last week but that is to be expected because we were defending a lot. This time will be different because we will have a lot more chances and I am sure we can play well enough to score the three goals we require."

His side's qualifying campaign suggests that they might struggle, though, for the Iranians failed to score three times in any of their second qualifying phase group matches against Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq or Thailand. The Iranians, in fact, managed 10 goals in their eight games.