Two teams who have had vastly different World Cup qualifying journeys will wrap up proceedings at the Imam Reza Stadium when Iran entertain the challenge of North Korea.

The home side have put together a stunning campaign to sit top of their group heading into Tuesday's finale, while the away side still await their first victory and are guaranteed to finish bottom.

Match preview

Courtesy of a flying start to the World Cup qualifiers, which saw them win six and draw one of the opening seven matches, Iran wasted no time confirming their place in the hat for next year's tournament in North America.

Amir Ghalenoei's men have since taken their foot off the gas a bit, picking just one point from the subsequent six available off the back of a 1-0 defeat to Qatar on Thursday, their first loss of the qualifying campaign.

However, it was not for a lack of trying from Team Melli, who gave a decent account of themselves but were ultimately undone by Pedro Miguel's opener four minutes shy of the half-time whistle at the Jassin Bin Hamad Stadium.

A win last time out would have confirmed Iran's status as winners of Group A, and they now need to beat North Korea in their upcoming encounter to fend off any competition from Uzbekistan, just two points behind.

Despite their recent no-show in front of goal, only Japan (24) and Qatar (17) have scored more goals than Iran's 16, so Tuesday's hosts will be aiming to serve up another impressive display on home turf, where they boast a combined score of 14-3 over the last six outings.

Having just about managed to scrape past the second round of the qualifiers via a second-place finish in Group D with nine points from their six outings, North Korea were always going to be up against it in their search for a first World Cup appearance since 2010.

Sin Yong-nam's men lost their opening third-round clash against Uzbekistan 1-0, and that set the tone for the rest of the way as they lost five of the next eight matches, managing just three points, all of which came in draws.

Alongside Kuwait, Chollima are one of two teams without a win in the latest phase of the qualifiers, with their last competitive victory coming against Myanmar just under a year ago, although they did go six games unbeaten in friendlies between January and March earlier this year.

Conceding a whopping 18 goals across their nine matches so far, North Korea have been the architects of their own downfall on a number of occasions and can have no complaints about what has undoubtedly been a shambolic campaign.

Tuesday's visitors will now hope to end their winning drought at the final time of asking, but given their shambolic record against the hosts, who are unbeaten in 13 previous meetings across all competitions since 1973, North Korea definitely have it all to do.

Iran World Cup Qualifying - Asia form:

North Korea World Cup Qualifying - Asia form:

North Korea form (all competitions):

Team News

Iran's Milad Mohammadi was shown two yellow cards in the space of two minutes against Qatar and is unavailable to play any part in Tuesday's encounter.

In Mohammadi's absence, Ali Nemati is expected to be given the nod to start at left-back with Saleh Hardani manning the other full-back position either side of Shoja Khalilzadeh and Aref Aghasi in central defence.

Jin Hyok Kim, Kuk-chol Kang II and Kwang-hun Pak are all huge doubts to take to the field for North Korea here after coming off with respective injury scares against Kyrgyzstan on Thursday.

Kye Tak came off the bench to good effect in the aforementioned game, where he replaced Kang just past the midway point of the first half, and the 24-year-old should feature right from the off this time around.

Iran possible starting lineup:

Beiranvand; Nemati, Khalilzadeh, Aghasi, Hardani; Karimi, Ezatolahi; Mohebi, Hosseinzadeh, Alipourghara; Taremi

North Korea possible starting lineup:

Hyok; Sung-Hye, Song, Jang, Ryong II; Paek, Tam, Ro, I Ri; J Ri, Jong

We say: Iran 3-0 North Korea

Iran suffered a rare bump in the road last time out but will back themselves to bounce back immediately here.

We can see the home side cruising to a routine win when all is said and done.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

Written by
Adepoju Marvellous

Previews by email