China's second match in this stage of 2018 World Cup. The PRC fell in their opener against South Korea, but are being positive after a late comback. And the squad will also have their hands full tomorrow night in Shenyang, Liaoning province as they face the top ranked team in Asia -- Iran.

The match getting lots of media coverage with more than 100 journalists showing up to China's training session. The majority of the tickets have also been sold out for Tuesday's long awaited contest.

Gao Hongbo and his staff have prepared diligently for the match, studying game tape of Iran's last match against Qatar. China will also focus more on defending, after they surrendered three goals in that loss to South Korea.

The hosts know they cannot afford to lose to their higher ranked opponents, but they expect a good effort on home soil.

"Iran is a very strong opponent, they are higher than us in the world ranking, their players are very skilled also, but we have the advantage of playing at home, we hope we can play at our best, and give all we have on the pitch in front of our home fans," said Huang Bowen, China midfielder.

Iran arrived in Shenyang yesterday and went through a quick training session. Not every member of the squad made it to the pitch, as a good partion of the team's starting line-up chose to stay at their hotel to rest up for the match.

Iran's coach Carlos Queiroz was the manager of Portugal in 2010 and they played a friendly with China, the Portuguese winning 2-nil. Gao Hongbo was the head coach for the PRC at that time also, and the Iranian boss has vivid memories of that encounter.