It's time to get this show on the road. The teams are in the tunnel. It's another England World Cup campaign. Strap yourselves in.

Rio Ferdinand
Former England defender on BBC One

Mehdi Taremi knows how to score goals. 1 in 2 at international level, seven in 13 games in qualifying. He's a bit of a hybrid between a nine and a 10. He's very happy to come short and link things in and tee other people up. He's adept at going right through and scoring goals and when he gets through, this guy knows how to score.

He's got 90 goals and assists in 109 games since he's come to Portugal three years ago. He's a real good player and if they gets on the counter in the transition, and get into good positions and chances fall to him, we'll have to be worried about it.

Andy Cryer
BBC Sport in Qatar

Plenty of social media posts about England fans having issues getting into the ground because of e-ticketing issues. All the England and Iran fans I have just spoken to said they got in fine but there are obviously issues in some areas of the ground.

Shaimaa Khalil
BBC News in Qatar

A few minutes before the game it’s impossible to escape the situation in Iran. An Iranian woman protesting in the crowd. She didn’t want to show her face or name. But said we could share this picture. “Please tell our story.” Another Iranian fan tells me.

Jermaine Jenas
Former England midfielder on BBC Radio 5 Live

With this group of players there is an opportunity to go and play some exciting football and there was glimpses of that against Germany in the second half of the Nations League. I think Bukayo Saka is a starter For England what he offers you going forward and defensively is great.

Micah Richards
Former England defender on BBC One

Jude Bellingham is outstanding. When we were in the Euros, I thought he should be playing then but I didn't want it to come too early for him. Now is his time to shine. What he's doing at Dortmund, week in, week out. I've watched his game and how he's improved from just being good on the ball to making those forward runs.

I think he's got absolutely everything. There was an article in Germany saying that all his goals were coming in the Champions League and then he goes and scores in the league. He's got everything in his game. He just needs to keep his feet on the ground, which I think he will do, and there's no limits to where this player can go.

England striker Harry Kane was the top scorer in the 2018 World Cup, with five of his six goals coming in the group stages.

No player has ever been top or joint-top scorer at two different World Cups.

Gareth Southgate has led England to the last four in both tournaments as national team head coach - the 2018 World Cup semis and Euro 2020 final.

Only Alf Ramsey can boast a similar record as England boss (World Cup winners in 1966, Euro semi-finalists in 1968).

These England fans are still waiting to get into the ground, reportedly because of e-ticketing issues.

As Gary Lineker has just been saying on BBC One, there are plenty of empty seats inside the stadium.

Rio Ferdinand
Former England defender on BBC One

Southgate has taken England to heights that we would have thought were unimaginable before he came. He's made it a place where there is harmony. Players want to turn up now. Before players would pull out and you know that they don't really want to be there, it's not a real injury. Now, these guys are clamouring to get there.

They're desperate for the notification to say they're in the next squad. There's such a difference. This squad has been close to winning tournaments. That's what you want, no matter how you play football. As a player, not every trophy that I won was done playing the beautiful game and playing spectacular football. Nobody remembers that. You want the trophy in your hand, however you get that done, you get it done.

Former England defender Alex Scott is wearing the One Love armband pitchside before England's opening match against Iran.

England captain Harry Kane will not wear the armband following a joint statement from seven football associations which said they could not put their players "in a position where they could face sporting sanctions".

Captains, including Kane and Gareth Bale of Wales, had planned to wear the armband during matches to promote diversity and inclusion.

Kane will instead wear Fifa's No Discrimination armband.

You can read more about this here.

Phil McNulty
BBC Sport chief football writer in Doha

The Khalifia International Stadium remains sparsely populated less than 30 minutes before kick-off as thousands of supporters remain outside because of an e-ticketing problem.

Stadium announcers are attempting to rev up the atmosphere but might need a bit more an audience for their ear-splitting attempts succeed.

Iran are one of 20 teams to have featured at the previous two World Cups in 2014 and 2018.

Of those teams, they have had the fewest shots (47), the fewest shots on target (10) and scored the fewest goals (three) in the group stages.

Iran have never progressed past the first round of the World Cup, winning only two of their 15 matches (v USA in 1998 and Morocco in 2018).

They have scored just nine goals in those games. At 0.6, it's the lowest goals-per-game ratio of any nation to play more than 10 games.

Alex Scott
Former England and Arsenal defender on BBC One

Image source, BBC Sport

What I would like, there has been so much talk around Harry Maguire right now, he doesn't need to have a worldie game, just be solid defensively, get the ball, make the tackles, make the passes, just be solid as a back four.

They can hurt Iran down the left hand side, overload that, keeping peppering that side, from what I've seen of the clips, that's the direction they need to go in today.

Come on England!

So what does Carlos Queiroz think of England's chances at this World Cup. It probably isn't surprising to hear him say that Gareth Southgate's lads could win it, although he's more optimistic than I think a lot of people back here are about the Three Lions' chances.

"What can I say about England? One of the top national teams in the world," he said. "They are serious candidates to be in the final position, why not a contender to be the world champion?

"They reached a wonderful position in the last World Cup and Euros. They have a storm of talent.

"I worked with the generation of Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and David Beckham but this national team is really different because they have a realistic approach to any single game which makes them very, very dangerous."