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Inter Milan confirmed on Saturday that striker Mehdi Taremi remains stuck in Tehran due to the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, forcing him to miss the club’s opening match at the FIFA Club World Cup.
Taremi, 32, had been in Iran last week for international duty, where he scored in a 3-0 World Cup qualifying victory over North Korea. However, escalating tensions and travel restrictions prevented him from securing a flight to join Inter’s squad in Los Angeles.
Inter will begin their Club World Cup campaign against Monterrey from Mexico on Tuesday at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. The match will also mark the debut of new head coach Cristian Chivu, who was appointed on Monday following Simone Inzaghi’s departure after Inter’s heavy 5-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final.
At a press conference in Beverly Hills on Saturday, Chivu expressed confidence in the squad’s ability to rebound from a season of near misses in both Serie A and the Champions League.
“This team has great quality,” the 44-year-old former Romanian international said. “We got right to the end but didn’t get the trophies. It wasn’t a failure of a season. We knocked out Bayern and Barca in the Champions League. We were top of the league, one of the best in Europe, for a long time. So we cannot forget this. Failure doesn’t exist in football. Failure is making excuses.”
