Iran

The Iran national football team (Persian: تیم ملی فوتبال مردان ایران‎, romanized: Tīm-e Melli-e Fūtbāl-e Mardān-e Īrān), also known as Team Melli (Persian: تیم ملی‎, romanized: Tīm-e Melli, lit. 'the national team'), represents Iran in international football and is controlled by the Iran Football Federation. From December 2014 until May 2018, the men's national football team of Iran remained the highest-ranked team in Asia, representing the longest continuous period of time a team has been top of the continent in the rankings. Iran is one of the most successful men's national teams in Asia with three Asian Cup championships (1968, 1972, and 1976). Iran's best performance at the Olympics was reaching the quarterfinals in the 1976 Montreal Games. Iran has qualified for the World Cup five times (1978, 1998, 2006, 2014, and 2018) but has never advanced past the group stage. They have, however, won two matches in the World Cup, one against the United States in 1998, and their opener against Morocco in 2018.