Roger de Sa has landed a coaching gig with the Iran national side ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
De Sa was part of Carlos Queiroz's coaching staff for the Egyptian national side, who reached the final of the Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year.
The former Orlando Pirates and Bidvest Wits tactician will fly to Tehran today to join Queiroz as assistant coach for Iran's World Cup campaign.
"Once you qualify for the World Cup you give yourself a realistic chance, and with the tournament being held in Qatar, it evens it out a bit more because you are not playing in Europe, you are not playing in South America, so its almost a neutral venue," De Sa said in a press release.
"The heat and humidity will be a challenge for many of the players in the tournament. We have a short time to prepare, not ideal, ideally we would have been there for a year but Carlos knows the team and the players know him, as he coached them in the last two World Cups."
Iran's preparations for the World Cup begins this week before they take on Uruguay and Senegal during the upcoming international break.
"We had a nine month gig there. When we were called in to work with Egypt they were out of the top twenty in Africa, which is unusual for a country like Egypt, so they were struggling and we managed to get some good results early on. We made it to the final of the AFCON, beating a lot of top teams to reach the final, which we lost to Senegal on a penalty shootout. We over-achieved in the Cup of Nations; by the time we finished we were fourth or fifth in Africa. We beat Morocco, Ivory Coast and Cameroon, the host team," he added.
The World Cup qualifier we unfortunately lost again to Senegal in a penalty shootout. Our goal was to qualify for the World Cup, which we did not achieve. We have left a good vibe in Egypt but I could not commit long-term to staying there."
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