Azerbaijan's Football Team Arrives in Iran

The match will take place at the Azadi stadium in Tehran at 19.00 on Wednesday.

The Iranian national team is preparing for qualification games for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The next game will be next month against Saudi Arabia.

This is while Iran's midfield superstars Ali Karimi and Mehdi Mahdavikia have been left out of the squad for next month's World Cup qualification game against Saudi Arabia.

Karimi has not played since May after he had termed the current squad the weakest in his 10-year presence in the national team.

Iranian head coach Ali Daei, who is said not to have a good relation with the former Bayern Munich midfielder, had at that time given an alleged injury as reason for Karimi's omission.

But football insiders said that his exclusion was due to the critical remarks.

Daei again called up German Bundesliga player Mehdi Mahdavikia (Frankfurt) but later crossed his name out for the September 6 match, the first qualification game in Asia group 2 where Iran will also meet the United Arab Emirates and the two Koreas.

Azerbaijan played a friendly against Iceland on 20 August. The match ended in a 1-1 draw.

Azerbaijan's German head coach Berti Foghts has invited Leandro Gomesh and Usima Ndukayu, two footballers of the Azerbaijani club Olympic, for the match with Iran. Gomesh and Ndukayu were not invited for the match with Iceland.