Afshin Afshar, lastkick.com

Iran and FYR Macedonia played a 1-1 draw in Tehran’s Azadi stadium.

Most of the friendly encounter was played under torrential rain in Tehran’s Azadi stadium. Both teams struggled to organize a meaningful attack in the first half. Although the Macedonian hit man Goran Pandev came close on a couple of occasions thanks to his own individual brilliace, the match remained goalless until the 36th minute when Macedonian goalkeeper Tome Pacovski spilled a free kick taken by Iran’s Milad Maydavoodi from twenty five yards out. Iran midfielder Andranik Teimourian was alert to tap the rebound into the net and give Team Melli the lead.

The Macedonians picked up the pace in the second half, and using quick and short passes exploited the gaps in Iran’s midfield. Iran attempted to tighten up the middle, but that opened room on the sides for the Macedonian wingers, and four minutes after the break a very nice pass by Velice Shumulikoski found Vlade Lazarevsky on the right side, and Lazarevsky sent a perfectly timed and placed cross to a wide open Pandev on the far side, and the striker made sure to not waste the chance this time.

After the tying goal, both teams managed to somewhat reorganize their offenses and create a few more chances, but failed to produce any more goals.

The match was poorly attended and at some point during the match the rain forced a crowd of a thousand attending fans to move up and away from the field-side seats to take cover under the second tier stands.

Iran will travel to Amman on November 22 to face Jordan for the return leg of their Asian Cup qualifier.