Bosnia 3-1 Iran:

Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko left the World Cup on a positive note by leading Bosnia to their first victory in the tournament.

Dzeko was heavily criticised at home after a series of missed chances in Bosnia's second game against Nigeria saw them eliminated.

But the 28-year-old fared rather better on Wednesday when his opening strike helped ensure his proud nation wouldn't finish bottom of Group E and without a point in their debut World Cup.

Roma's Miralem Pjanic effectively sealed the points with a second goal after an hour that also ended Iran's slim hopes of getting through to the last 16.

Charlton's Rez Ghoochannejhad gave Iran some hope late on by scoring their first goal of the World Cup but Bosnia immediately extended their two-goal advantage with a fine effort by Avdija Vršajevic.

After a frustrating opening, Dzeko found himself free of white-shirted defenders for once as he picked up the ball midway in the Iranian half and buried a low left-foot finish from 22 yards.

The nature of his subdued reaction to scoring underlined what a difficult campaign he's just been through, including a goal wrongfully disallowed against Nigeria.

Iran needed to win to retain any hope of reaching the knockout stages as group runners-up to Argentina - but you wouldn't have known it as they began with a rigid 4-1-4-1.

Their manager Carlos Quierioz, formerly Sir Alex Ferguson's No 2 at Manchester United, masterminded one of the best-organised defences in the tournament, but they were also lightweight up front and the last team in Brazil to score.

Often, Ghoochannejhad - who missed a chance to give Iran a famous result against Lionel Messi's Argentina - was left on his own up front and his goal record of one in 17 games for Charlton last season didn't inspire confidence either.

Salvador had become known at this World Cup as the "City of Goals" - with the three previous games staged there yielding 17.

After Dzeko had scored, Iran were unlucky when a shot by Masoud Shojaei beat Asmir Begovic and crashed off the underneath of the crossbar.

Goal-line technology was called for and showed the ball clearly hadn't crossed the line.

With Nigeria losing to Argentina, Iran knew they could qualify if they overturned Bosnia's advantage.

But that became an impossible task when Jalal Hosseini needlessly gave the ball away and Dzeko reacted quickly to play in Pjanic, who was level with last defender and scored with ease.

Ghoochannejhad finished smartly from six yards to briefly reduce the scoreline to 2-1 but within 120 seconds, the overlapping Vršajevic fired in his first international goal to atone for an earlier miss from Dzeko's pass.

For a country of just four million people, Bosnia and Herzegovina can go home feeling prouder of their performances in Brazil than England for example.

Their real achievement was qualifying for the finals after a tragic recent history that saw 200,000 people killed during a brutal war in the 1990s following independence.

Source : Mailonline / By JOE BERNSTEIN PUBLISHED: 17:52 GMT, 25 June 2014