Why are the fans giving Team Melli the cold shoulder?

Apparently Team Melli fans from all walks of life do not have much faith in their team making it to South Africa 2010.

Every day, Iranian newspapers print articles and news painting pictures of gloom and doom! The lack of enthusiasm is evident in the stadiums when the team plays. The average attendance has been noticeably low and the smaller crowds that do show up tend to be more subdued.

Part of this lack of enthusiasm may be a bi-product of the ongoing media battle with team’s head coach Ali Daei. Unlike most previous national side coaches, Daei has a lot of self-belief along with full backing of the federation, and there may lay the problem.

Historically, Team Melli fans have viewed their team to be theirs and not the establishment’s. That always created an “us versus them” attitude which made it easy for the fans to forgive the team and the players for their imperfections on and off the field.

But now the team is directly tied to establishment through Daei who is said to have friends in high place, and the fans simply can not bring themselves to side with the establishment; that has never been their way!

The other factor is Daei’s overconfidence and at times cockiness that is turning off the fans. At the helm of their beloved and always “victimized” Team Melli, the fans want to see a competent leader who is equally victimized by the establishment. A good example of this is Croat coach Tomislav Ivic who coached Team Melli for a few short months in 1998. He was a well respected and widely acknowledged coach who was, in the eyes of many fans, unjustly dismissed prior to the France 1998 World Cup. To this day the Iranian fans credit him for Team Melli’s good showing and wonder what might have been had Ivic remained the coach through the tournament.

Daei seems to have burnt a few bridges with the fans during his playing days. On the way to Germany 2006 most fans thought Daei was well past his prime and wanted him to step aside for the good of the younger players. Daei decided against retiring, and was consistently picked by then coach Branko Ivankovic. The fans saw that as proof of his establishment ties.

Then earlier this year, when the federation was looking for a new head coach Daei was surprisingly picked ahead of the very popular Afshin Ghotbi who was coaching Perspolis of Tehran at that time.  Again the fans credited this to Daei’s connections.

All of this may be unfair to Daei who is the most well known Iranian player outside of Iran. He had an illustrious international career and holds the record for most international goals scored. As a coach, he led Saipa FC of Tehran to a league championship, and is undefeated in competitive games as the head coach of Team Melli. His team is second in its group and has a very good chance of finishing amongst the top two and qualifying for South Africa. But as any football historian can tell you, it is almost impossible for any football personality to erase an image that has been hacked into the minds of the fans. Maradona will always be the cheater in the eyes of the English fans, and the savior in the eyes of the Argentines no matter what he did or does on and off the field. Daei will always remain the over confident bully with the right connections.