Mohammad Mehdi Mehdikhani secured an opening win for Iran as his late goal saw off Costa Rica 1-0 in FIFA U-20 World Cup Korea Republic 2017 Group C.

Despite Iran’s fairly well-established FIFA World Cu pedigree, having appeared at three in the last 20 years, this was only their third ever outing at U-20 level – and the first of those came in the inaugural tournament. Because of that, you could forgive them for being a tad ring-rusty. In truth though, Costa Rica were not much sharper.

Both struggled to fashion opportunities in a tepid first half. Iran began the brighter of the pair, looking to utilize a distinct height advantage. As time wore on, Costa Rica’s stronger possession game saw them begin to dictate the pace of the match, though a sloppy final ball undermined their chance of fashioning any clear openings, FIFA.com reported.  

The pattern continued until the latter stages where Iran first came close from an audacious Omid Norafkan corner, clipping the top of the bar, before the deadlock was broken with nine minutes to go. Unmarked at the far post, Mehdikhani chested down and fired low into the bottom left corner to snatch three points from what looked like a certain stalemate.

“We won the match after 40 years but it will not be our last win in the tournament. The first match is the most difficult match but our players did well in both halves and we earned a valuable victory,” Iran coach Amirhossein Peyrovani said in the post-match news conference.

“We advanced to the World Cup after 16 years and it’s a good feeling. Iran U-18 football team have also qualified for the World Cup and our senior team will most likely advance to the 2018 World Cup. It shows we have so many talented players in our country,” he added.

Iran will meet Zambia on Wednesday in the second group match. Peyrovani says they have analyzed the team.

“Zambia played well against Portugal but Portugal missed several chances in this match. The match against Zambia can be the group decider match for both teams,” he added.

Also in the group, African champion Zambia made a dream start to their 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup campaign with a 2-1 victory over two-time global winner Portugal in the group C clash in Jeju.

The 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup is the 21st edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship.

The tournament is hosted by South Korea between 20 May and 11 June 2017.