Dinamo Zagreb interested in Iran’s Mohammad Nosrasti

Apparently Dinamo Zagreb has shown interest in Iran and Pas FC defender Mohammad Nosrati. According to Pas president Zagreb officials have not directly contacted them yet; they have rather sent word through Iran’s Croat coach Branko Ivankovic.

Nosrati is a young player who plays in the right defensive position for Iran, and sometimes fills in as a central defender for Pas. He loves moving up the field to join the attack, and has good ball handling techniques.

He scored two key goals for Iran during the qualifying campaign, one in the first round against Qatar that put Iran through to the final round, and another in final round against Bahrain which bought Iran the ticket to Germany.

With that in mind one would think he should be a celebrity amongst Iranian football fans, but it is not so. Unfortunately for Nosrati, during an AFC Champions League match, he gave up a penalty, and had a shot bounce off him for a goal. It was all downhill after that.

He had a series of bad performances, and remarkably enough had more balls bounce off of him into the goal at both club and country level. That was enough to quickly turn the hero into the goat.

In spite of all of this, Branko Ivankovic and Mustafa Denizli, his coaches at club and country, still stand by him. They have gone as far as publicly defending the player and calling him one of the best defenders in Iran.

If materialized, a move to Zagreb will give Nosrati a chance to prepare for Iran’s World Cup campaign away from constant hackling of the unforgiving Iranian football fans.