Best current Asian XI in football

Son Heung-Min has been the flagbearer of Asian football for the last few years

Centre-Back - Maya Yoshida (Japan)

Maya Yoshida who will start as a right-sided centre-back is another experienced Japanese international, who has had a very respectable career in Europe. He is the current captain of the Japanese national team and has won 95 caps and scored 10 goals, which is more than decent for a centre-back.

At club level, Yoshida has made 179 appearances with Southampton, scoring 9 goals. He has also sometimes deputized as a right-back and thus like Sakai, he provides flexibility to his manager.

The Asian continent doesn't really boast of too many exceptional central defenders and thus Yoshida was a pretty obvious choice given his experience at the top level, his athleticism and work rate.

Centre-back - Morteza Pouraliganji (Iran)

As stated before, Asia doesn't have many brilliant centre-backs. However, the 26-year-old Iranian might be an exception to this. Anyone who might have followed Iran's road to the 2018 FIFA World Cup and their performances in the competition thereafter must have noticed Morteza Pouranliganji.

Iran remained unbeaten throughout their qualifiers and that was really down to a solid defence. Most of their games were really low scoring which showed that Iran's attack wasn't the most dynamic. However, the fact that they still managed to be called the best Asian team at the World Cup, really showed their defensive prowess.

Even during the World Cup, Iran won their first match against Morocco 1-0, lost the next to Spain 1-0 and then drew 1-1 against Portugal. This is phenomenal considering that Iran's defence was up against the likes of Hakim Ziyech, Amine Harit, Diego Costa, Isco, David Silva, Andres Iniesta, Ricardo Quaresma and Cristiano Ronaldo to name a few.

An integral part of that defence was Pouraliganji. He already has 36 caps for the national side and looking at his talent, he will surely have many more.

Edited by Aaditya Narayan