Here's a little background on the Iran players to give us a better idea what they have.
Their strength, in terms of the level of player, actually appear to be their forwards.
- Mehdi Taremi plays at Porto and has scored 42 goals there since 2020
- Sardar Azmoun just made a move to Bayer Leverkusen this year after scoring 52 goals in 3 years at Zenit St. Petersburg. He gets regular PT for Leverkusen but has only scored once this season. That said, he and Taremi would start at the 9 for the US.
- Ali Gholizdeh has scored 21 goals for Charleroi in the Belgian league since 2018. To give you a comparison, Jordan Pefok scored 34 in a similar league (Swiss) since 2020
Midfielders
Ehsan Hajsafi has split time between the Greek league and Iranian league since 2018 having played for 6 teams since 2016, currently with AEK Athens, which is traditionally the 3rd or 4th best Greek club.
Saied Afagh played for Rostov in Ukraine from 15-20 and only made 18 appearances while being sent out on loan to 2 Russian 2nd Division teams, a Belgian team, Reading (4 appearances). He's played 50 games in Denmark since 2020.
Ahmad Nourallahi plays in the UAE league.
Defendere
Left Back Milad Mohammadi plays for AEK after playing in the Belgian league and.....Chechnya in the Russian league
Right Back Ramin Razaeian scored 17 goals between 2018 and 2020 (probably playing MF) for a team that is currently in the Qatar 2nd Division. Not sure if they were 1st Division at that time. He then made a move to another Qatari team and is now playing in Iran
Center Back Morteza Pouraliganji has played only 43 games since 2019 between Qatar, China, and now Iran.
The better Center Back appears to be Majid Hosseini who has played 99 games in Turkey since 2018.
So, contrarty to common belief, the strength of this team is the offense and the weakness, based on individual talent is the defense. That said, coaching and organization can certainly make up for talent deficiencies on defense.