India vs Iran: Toothless Blue Tigers, Rahul Bheke-right back experiment and other talking points

India conceded all three goals after the break.

India suffered their first defeat of the 2025 CAFA Nations Cup in a disappointing 3-0 loss to Iran on Monday (1st September, 2025). Despite holding the FIFA-ranked No. 20 side to a 0-0 draw in the first half, the Blue Tigers lost control in the second half.

Amirhossein Hosseinzadeh scored the first goal, before late goals from Ali Alipourghara and Mehdi Taremi helped Iran get a comfortable win in the end. It was a pretty gritty performance from Khalid Jamil’s side, who ultimately came up short because of some silly defensive errors and the cause of players being drained out by the relentless Iranian side.

Despite the defeat, a few notable things were learnt about this Indian team set-up in Jamil’s first defeat as the Blue Tigers’ boss. This included aspects about his system, certain individuals, and things to be improved going forward. Here we look at the talking points for the India vs Iran clash.

5. Rahul Bheke’s right-back experiment fails to impress

Rahul Bheke was again selected as the right-back option for the Indian side by Jamil, after he produced a solid performance against Tajikistan. However, the fact that Bheke has played the majority of his games in recent years as a centre-back showed.

Even though the Bengaluru FC defender was sturdy in the first half, he was clearly out of breath and low on energy after the hour mark. That resulted in silly errors.

Iran’s opener saw an unfortunate deflection off Bheke before it went into the back of the net. He then played Alipourghara clear onside for his goal, and was nowhere near Taremi for his goal. Bheke has shown signs of struggling against fast-paced attacks on the wide areas and adds very little creative threat, not being able to make overlapping runs and being proactive enough to be a reliable full-back.

4. Iran Yadwad comes up short in the no.9 role audition

The reason why Khalid Jamil opted to exclude Sunil Chhetri from his India squad was to give more opportunities to the likes of Irfan Yadwad. The Chennaiyin FC forward spearheaded the Indian frontline for the second straight game, but the end result wasn’t really anything to praise.

Yadwad only had a few touches of the ball in the opposition half, failing to really trouble the Iranian defenders or get the ball in any scorable areas.

He fluffed a possible counter-attack in the first half after being played through by Nikhil Prabhu, and couldn’t’ bully the Iran defenders with his physicality or off-the-ball movement. Yadwad was ultimately taken off in the second half and his chances of remaining as India’s no.1 striker options has drastically gone down.

3. Stacked midfield line solidifies India’s shape but chokes attacking options

Khalid Jamil opted to make a notable tweak to India’s formation and overall shape from the game against Tajikistan. Danish Farooq and Nikhil Prabhu were both brought into the team, with the duo being complimented by Suresh Singh to create a deep-block three-line midfield line.

India basically opted in a 4-5-1 system where the wingers and Irfan Yadwad were mostly given duties of pressing the opposition players and the remainder remaining behind. To his credit, Jamil’s system was actually able to frustrate Iran for the majority of the game.

The Indian players executed his tactics well, maintaining a stubborn defensive line and not allowing any space to be crated in the midfield. However, this also had an adverse affect on India’s attacking prowess. Neither of the three midfielders had the creative acumen to recover possession and create big chances on the transitions. They were too adamant at helping out the defenders and man-mark the Iran players, allowing the Irani side all the possession and little room to hurt their backline.

2. Counter-attacking issues continue to plague Blue Tigers

It’s quite notable in a match against a higher-ranked opposition that India will have to rely on counter-attacks and set pieces to create major goal-scoring chances. Iran were smart enough to dominate much of the possession to choke out the Blue Tigers’ chances of getting that many set pieces to really trouble them. Unfortunately for Jamil’s side, the players failed to execute the counter-attacking tactics properly.

Despite recovering possession in promising areas on multiple occasions, the players were just not quick or efficient enough to get the ball forward in a razor-sharp fashion. India were only able to create a few decent counter-attacks, but their inablility to do anything in the final third hurt them.

Jamil needs to seriously work on making his side more prolific and direct with their counter-attacking moves so that India can start hurting opponents on the transitions and enhance their goal-scoring potential.

1. Steely Nikhil Prabhu shows potential in midfield role

Nikhil Prabhu made his first start for the Indian national team under Khalid Jamil against Iran, operating in the deepest midfield role for his side. Even though this was his-first ever start against one of Asia’s best international teams, Prabhu showed little signs of cold nerves.

The Punjab FC midfielder was a hard-working, tenacious figure in the midfield, covering the spaces really well to stop Iran from dictating things in the central areas or create chances through the centre.

He made a number of crucial tackles and possession recoveries, frustrating the opposition midfielders with his proactive nature. Prabhu added a lot of steel to his side and although he did show sins of exhaustion late on, his encouraging display should see him start way more matches for India going forward.