If a goalkeeper makes a dozen incredible saves, it might be simply dismissed as him doing his job, but if he makes a blunder and let a ball hit the back of his goal net, he gets all the blames and might even become the target of many a cruel jokes for years to come.

Who would want to take on such a huge responsibility, such an uphill challenge, such a low reward/high risk task?

Of all the players in a football team, goalkeepers are a different breed, different characters. Nasser Hejazi was one such character.

During his goalkeeping years, he inspired generations of young Iranian men many of whom tried to follow his footsteps. His style on the green field was unique and gracious. Just being a “Great Goalkeeper” that he was would be enough to make him an immortal in the eyes of millions of Iranian fans, but interestingly, in his coaching years, Hejazi moved away from goalkeeping and established himself as a modern day coach.

During his coaching years, he rarely commented on goalkeeping. Going through the rosters of the teams that he coached over the years one would struggle to find one outstanding goalkeeper. It is as if he intentionally refrained from training or breeding exceptional goalkeepers. But in fact he was concentrating on the bigger picture in the game, and to him goalkeeping was just a piece of the puzzle. However, once a keeper, always a keeper.

Swimming against the current is a unique characteristic of goalies, which needs bravery and willpower. Nasser Hejazi had mastered this art and brought it up to a different level off the field. How he lived, what he believed, and what he said set an example for the generations of Iranians to come.

All the inspiring young Iranian goalkeepers should salute Hejazi as their role model, while the whole nation of Iran salutes their immortal” Hero” for one last time.

Earlier this week in a letter to the presidents and general managers of the four Iranian companies affiliated with the Ministry of Petroleum, Masoud Mirkazemi, Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Supervision, informed them that starting with the next fiscal year they must cut all the subsidies to the athletic clubs affiliated with the Oil Ministry. This order comes directly from the office of the presidency.

Approximately twenty athletic clubs receive their operating budgets or large subsidies from the Petroleum Ministry or companies affiliated with it. The most notable of these clubs is Tehran’s Athletic and Cultural Club, the parent club of Naft of Tehran FC. Naft is currently Iranian top division.

On Monday, Mansour Ghanbarzadeh, the president of Tehran’s Athletic and Cultural Club questioned the move and suggested that in the absence of a professional infrastructure and a transitional plan there will be a lot of confusion in the process.

Many of the Iranian football clubs including Sepahan and Zob-Ahan of Isfahan are affiliated with other Iranian industries. It would be interesting to see if this order will be extended to those industries as well.

The Portuguese is arguably the highest profile coach to have ever been in charge of Team Melli. His resume is nothing to sneeze at and his mere presence on Team Melli bench brings Iranian Football Federation (IRIFF) instant credibility, something that it has lacked since Germany 2006.

In his first official interview with the Iranian media Queiroz sounded genuinely happy and excited, and was very open, articulate, and friendly. When asked about the goals put in front of him by the IRIFF, the coach named qualifying for Brazil 2014 and London 2012 Olympics as his primary goals.

Queiroz went on to introduce António Simões and Ali Reza Mansourian as his Assistant Managers; Dan Gaspar as the Goalkeeping Coach Mike McDermott as the Fitness Coach.

Those familiar with the inner politics of Iranian football could argue that this might become one of the biggest challenges of Queiroz’s career unless he gets a couple of convincing results right off the bat and buy himself some time to get to know his way around. The following two to three weeks should prove to be interesting as the Iranian tabloids start covering every small move the new coach makes.

Ten Things For Iran To Do In 2007

The New Year is already underway and there will be a lot happening in Asian football. There are the AFC U16, U19, and Beijing Olympics qualifiers at youth level. Then there is the AFC Champions League which will showcase best clubs in the continent, and then there is the biggest Asian prize of them all, the Asian Cup.

I am not going to go through the dreadfully painful practice of explaining how we do not have a coaching staff in place for our youth teams, or how our league champions Esteghlal of Tehran are committing self-mutilation in their front office, the club house, and on the pitch.

No, in the spirit of the New Year, I am going to avoid negativity and look at things from a positive and practical angel. So with that in mind, here are my top ten steps that if taken could make 2007 a good year for Iranian football:

10) Improve stadiums and pitches – Amongst the top 5 Asian football powers Iran has undoubtedly the worst pitches. If surveyed Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Australia’s top leagues will come ahead of Iran in number of topnotch stadiums.

Tehran’s Azadi and a couple of other stadiums aside, the rest of Iranian stadiums can hardly host an Asian Champions League match. Fortunately, Iran’s 2007 representatives in Asia are Esteghlal who play in Azadi, and Sepahan whose Naghsheh Jahan stadium needs minor repairs to the pitch in order to get approved by the AFC.

9) Start serious moves towards professionalism – The Iranian Professional League (IPL) is professional in name only. Most IPL clubs are sponsored by state owned industries. So in affect they are all directly or indirectly financed by the government and none of them can financially support themselves.

8 ) Start showing more club games on TV – Only Esteghlal and Perspolis of Tehran get their games broadcasted on the government sponsored national TV. The others get coverage only when they play one of these two teams so the fans around the country rarely get to see and appreciate the talent outside of those playing for the two Tehran clubs.

7) Bring fans to the stands – Because of poor facilities and lousy atmosphere created by a rowdy and unruly minority, true fans stay away from stadiums. Most games are played in front of crowds of less than 10,000; and this in a “Football Mad” country.

6) Force the clubs to meet their financial commitments – Many clubs, especially Perspolis and Esteghlal, are notorious for not meeting their financial obligations. Many players and coaches do not get paid on time, if at all. This is mostly because there is no financial accountability at clubs’ front office, so they go on spending sprees that they are not likely to afford.

5) Take advantage of FIFA sponsored training – FIFA regularly sponsors training classes for everything in football. Iran should not only improve its training programs for coaches, but also improve its sports medicine and sports management training programs amongst many other things.

4) Improve refereeing – Iran has a few good referees who do well in Asian tournaments. Like most other Asian countries, its league matches are often scarred by horrible refereeing. Good refereeing is essential for having a healthy league.

3) Hire coaches for youth teams – Time is running out! The qualifiers for the youth tournaments mentioned at the beginning of this article are only weeks away, and the teams have no coaches!

2) Schedule decent friendly games for the senior team – The Asian Cup is in July of 2007. So the coaches have plenty of time to pick and choose their best 22 for this summer’s tournament. To do that, they need to carefully watch the league games, and try players during friendly matches.

1) Settle the case with FIFA – FIFA wants Iranian Football Federation to rewrite its bylaws, and reorganize its infrastructure to match FIFA standards and requirements or it will ban Iran until these issues are properly addressed. So IFF bigwigs must get working on FIFA demands or items 2 through 10 above will not matter much!

You see, Iran is probably the only country on the planet in which the clubs pay, yes pay, the national broadcasting agency for broadcasting their matches! Over the last few years, successive IFF Presidents have tried their luck winning this fight, but none have succeeded.

Iranian football is having a major cash flow problem, because in Iran the traditional sources of football revenue are nonexistent. In a 2009 goal.com article I wrote about this in more detail.

This week, in a joint meeting of top division club presidents and the league officials everyone took their turn to speak their frustrations. The most interesting speaker was Ali Fathollahzadeh, President of Esteghlal of Tehran. For the last year or more, Fathollahzadeh has been lobbying to start a TV station independent of the Iranian National Broadcasting Agency that is dedicated to football. He has been arguing, perhaps correctly, that one such TV station would be able to bring in significant profit for Iranian football. However, it needs to be said that he is also trying to become the man in charge of that TV station.

It is no secret that, as it is now, football is a huge revenue generator for many individuals including those in charge of the national broadcasting agency, municipal stadia, and even certain clubs. So it is not too hard to see why establishment refuses to change the current arrangement; for them it would be like killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

Many of the Iranian clubs get a significant amount funding directly from the government and/or government subsidized industries, and there is little monitoring of how this money is spent. Therefore, trying to create an estimated balance sheet for any of these clubs is an impossible task, because there are no public records available. But if one adds up some of the reported salaries for the players, the estimated size of the spent cash will quickly make it clear that the problem may not be cash flow, but cash management or perhaps honest cash management.

An interesting development in recent years has been the Revolutionary Guards increasing interest in running these clubs.

The Revolutionary Guard has been expanding its direct control and influence over bigger portions of the Iranian economy over the last two decades. Some estimate that the Guard now controls 68% of Iran’s total exports (legal and illegal). This situation may not be too dissimilar to the involvement of the Columbian drug cartels in that country’s football during the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s. Many may recall that during that period Columbian football clubs were used as a money laundering tool for that country’s drug lords including the notorious Pablo Escobar. It is suggested that the Revolutionary Guard may have dusted of a book off Pablo’s old bookshelf.

Where this may end up is hard to tell, but with FIFA and AFC pushing for a true professional structures infrastructure in every country, the aggrieved Iranian club presidents and federation officials may just end up getting a bigger piece of the pie.

Here is more on the topic as reported and discussed on BBC’s Persian language broadcasting:

Carlos Queiroz

According to scripts from an interview with Abbas Torabian, Iranian Football Federation’s Chair of the International Relations, talks with Carlos Queiroz still continue.

Torabian who was the main IFF contact with Queiroz throughout the negotiations spoke about the IFF’s intentions to keep the entire process as secretive as possible because it is believed that there are those in Iran who had in the past negatively influenced negotiations with other foreign coaches.

Torabian spoke very highly of Queiroz and referred to him as not only an excellent coach but a football intellect and teacher. He went on to confirm that he is still in contact with the Portuguese man, and it is possible that he may be hired as a “technical consultant” to the national team.

This could be significant because the IFF has not been open to such possibilities in the past. It is also possible that the demonstrations and unrest in Iran were of some concern to Queiroz and his family, and a consulting role is another way of buying him some time until things calm down.

Torabian did refer to “certain concerns” by Queiroz, but was not clear what they were. This might confirm the news regarding the coach’s family’s worries about him working in Iran amid the events of the recent days.

It seems to me that Carlos Queiroz honestly wishes to do some bottom up constructive work in Iran. His ideas are the most comprehensive I have heard from any coach or candidate for the Team Melli job in recent years. Should the IFF get their way, Queiroz will become the highest profile coach to ever lead Team Melli.

According to a report published in the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) Ali Kaffashian the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) Chief told reporters that they had received the news via an email from Queiroz.

“We were ready to sign the contract. We had even agreed to certain terms including insurance and a 20% advanced payment upon signing of the contract, but Carlos Queiroz had a sudden change of heart” said Kaffashian.

“Our goal was to sign a three year agreement that would take us to 2014 World Cup. Queiroz wanted a clause in the contract that would entitle him to the entire sum in case of an unexpected termination of our agreement. We could not agree with that” continued Kaffashian.

In an apparent attempt to poke fun at the situation, Kaffashian told reporters that it seemed to him that the IFF should also consider negotiating with the spouses of its foreign candidates.

“We will now proceed with other candidates on our list” continued Kaffashian “and will inform the public once we have more to share”. He also stressed the fact that the IFF is focusing only on foreign candidates at this point.

Iran defeated Russia by a single goal in their Abu Dhabi friendly.

The goal winning goal was scored by Zob Ahan FC’s attacking midfielder in the final minute of the regular time. Khalatbari, the hero, immediately turned into goat when he received his second yellow card and was ejected from the game for taking his shirt of in celebration.

From Iran’s standpoint the timing of the match was not ideal. The team does not have a coach, and that would make this friendly only a nice addition to Team Melli’s stats.

The Russian National Team

Iran and Russia are scheduled to play a friendly in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. On the face of it getting the team back in camp and trying to help them put the disappointing loss to South Korea in the Asian Cup behind them sounds like a good idea. Furthermore, playing a strong team like Russia is a good way to measure the team’s strengths and weaknesses; however, it is hard to understand how any of this can be effectively accomplished when the team has no coach.

Former Coach Afshin Ghotbi’s contract ended after the South Korea match and no replacement has been hired, but on Tuesday former Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz was in Tehran for some preliminary conversations. Queiroz told reporters that he was happy with what he had seen and heard so far and was looking forward to continuing the negotiations. He will be in Abu Dhabi to watch the match.

It is hard to get excited about this match under the current circumstances, but it would be interesting to see whether the team can rise for the occasion and give the strong Russian side a good challenge shortly after their disappointing Asian campaign.

Carlos Queiroz (R)

Carlos Queiroz was in Tehran on Tuesday and visited the National Teams’ training facilities, spoke to Iranian Football Federation Officials, and had a press conference.

Reading his comments and responses during the press conference, my initial impression is that he is inclined to continue the negotiations and if all goes well, he will coach Team Melli. Queiroz himself stressed the fact that the negotiations are in their initial stages when he said, “This is a big decision for both sides and we must be very careful in reaching a decision. We must have a clear understanding about what the goals”. “Of course we are just at the beginning stages of the negotiation, but I must say that I have liked what I have seen so far”, continued the Portuguese coach.

The Iranian Federation expects Queiroz to supervise Iran U23 and U19 teams as well, and for that he is to recommend a couple of names along with the list of his assistants.

Queiroz plans to watch Iran vs. Russia friendly tomorrow in Abu Dhabi before going flying back to Europe.