🇮🇷 Iran vs New Zealand 🇳🇿

Iran’s expected goals (xG) of 2.35 against New Zealand’s 0.35 reflects a dominant expected territorial and chance-creation advantage, driven by Iran’s superior FIFA ranking (#21 vs #89) and likely midfield control against a side that historically struggles to generate quality shots against top-30 opponents.

New Zealand’s win probability of just 4.1% is among the lowest in the model’s dataset for a World Cup group-stage match, highlighting the extreme difficulty of an upset; Iran’s 82.3% win probability aligns with their ability to convert high-xG chances, as they averaged over 1.5 xG per game in 2022 World Cup qualifying.

This matchup is Iran’s first World Cup meeting with New Zealand; Iran has kept clean sheets in 3 of their last 5 World Cup matches against teams ranked outside the top 50, while New Zealand has failed to score in 4 of their last 6 World Cup appearances against Asian opponents.

The most likely scoreline of 2–0 (18.5% probability) and second most likely 1–0 (15.8%) suggest a controlled, low-variance win for Iran, with New Zealand’s expected goal output of 0.35 indicating they are unlikely to breach Iran’s defense unless from a set piece or counter-attack.