The Three Lions have limped into the World Cup thanks to a rather poor showing in the UEFA Nations League friendly series (3 draws, 3 losses), but they did breeze through qualifications just fine and should have no problem with Iran — though underestimating the best qualifier from Asia could be unwise.

Win, draw, or lose, this game will be excessively overanalyzed, but hopefully we at least get 90 minutes of entertaining football out of it.

As expected, both Mason Mount and Raheem Sterling start, with Conor Gallagher on the bench.

Here we go!

England starting lineup (4-2-3-1):
Jordan Pickford | Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire, John Stones, Kieran Trippier | Declan Rice, Jude Bellingham | Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount, Bukayo Saka | Harry Kane (c)

Substitutes from: Nick Pope, Aaron Ramsdale, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Jordan Henderson, Marcus Rashford, Kalvin Phillips, Eric Dier, Conor Coady, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden, Ben White, Callum Wilson, Conor Gallagher

Iran starting XI:
Alireza Beiranvand | Sadegh Moharrami, Ehsan Hajisafi (c), Milad Mohammadi, Morteza Pouraliganji, Rouzbeh Cseshimi, Majid Hosseini, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Ali Karimi, Ahmad Noorollahi, Mehdi Taremi

Substitutes from: Payam Niazmand, Ami Abedzadeh, Hossein Hosseini, Shoja Khalilzadeh, Saeid Ezatolahi, Karim Ansarifard, Vahid Amiri, Hossein Kanani, Saman Ghoddos, Mehdi Torabi, Ali Gholizadeh, Sardar Azmoun, Ramin Rezaeian, Abolfazi Jalali

Date / Time: Monday, November 21, 2022, 13.00 GMT; 8am EST
Venue: Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)

On TV: BBC One (UK); Fox Sports 1, Telemundo (USA); elsewhere
Streaming online: BBC iPlayer (UK); FOX Sports Live, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo (USA)

LIVE BLOG

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!