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Azizi at it again!

April 28th, 2009 | By: Afshin Afshar | 14 Comments »

The now retired Iranian football’s hero of Melbourne Khodadad Azizi who has been getting his name in print for all the wrong reasons as of late did it again! He started a nasty campaign against recently appointed Team Melli coach Afshin Ghotbi, and went as far as calling him a “traitor to the nation” in an interview!

It is hard to imagine what happens to Iranian footballers after they retire, but it seems like many tend to simply lose their marbles! Although in case of Azizi he never had many marbles to begin with! Those of us who live in Northern California remember his antics, especially the incident where he pushed a referee during a game for which he was suspended and eventually released by San Jose Earthquakes at the end of the season.

He did not do much better as a coach. Last year he was accused of physically attacking a reporter and hospitalizing the poor fellow after he apparently cheered for his hometown team after they defeated the team managed by Azizi. Azizi also has a long record of verbally insulting and attacking people in and out of football.

Keep your eyes on this ball. Azizi is not one to get off a bone after his got his teeth on it, and for whatever reason he has started growling at Ghotbi already.

Tags: Afshin Ghotbi, Khodadad Azizi, Team Melli

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Comments

By Abarmard | May 1st, 2009 at 7:37 am

Is it maybe because he is jealous. I wish Ghotbi lots of luck and success.

Posted from United States

By Afshin Afshar | May 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Hi Abarmard, I am sure that has a lot to do with it. I too wish Ghotbi and TM the best of luck. I hope to see them in SOuth Africa in 2010

Posted from United States

By Hamid - Tehran | May 22nd, 2009 at 5:41 am

That doesn’t surprise me – the problem of jealousy is not specific to Azizi only, it is a national problem. In every profession you are, colleagues and friends always show their resentment for you if you happen to be successful in that profession. Why we Iranians are like this I will never know! I find this really sad personally.

Posted from Islamic Republic Of Iran

By Afshin Afshar | May 22nd, 2009 at 8:18 am

Hamid jAn, sadly I have to agree with you. This is one of our cultural things that we could do without.

By Hamid - Tehran | May 25th, 2009 at 5:27 am

Agha Afshin, the very fact that 2 Iranians can agree with each other is a miracle to me! We in Iran think that … agreeing with someone else’s points of view means we are less knowledgeable ourselves. So that brings me to thank you for accepting that jealousy in Iran is widespread and we really need to do something about it if we are ever going to make headways in any field including football.

Posted from Islamic Republic Of Iran

By Afshin Afshar | May 25th, 2009 at 10:38 am

Hamid jAn, why shouldn’t we agree if you are saying it like it is? But I know what you mean. You put 5 of us Iranians in one room and 10 different opinions emerge, and none of us will claim any of them to be ours!

By Afshin Afshar | May 25th, 2009 at 10:41 am

By the way Hamid AghA, since you live in Iran, you must have access to more Team Melli news than I do. Send me any news (funny, serious, anything)that is worth sharing, I’ll post it here.

By Hamid - Tehran | May 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

Afshin jan, about sending you any news about Iran, to be absolutely honest with you I am not the right person to ask, as I do not interface with any Iranians much and do not either read or watch any Iranian media – the reason for this being that my job involves me to log onto the internet and communicate with the overseas countries – and that’s the reason that I visited your site for getting some news about the TM Believe it or not I get most of the news for the Iranian election from the English sites on the net – in other words only my body is in Iran; my work and all I read comes from overseas

By Afshin Afshar | May 25th, 2009 at 11:02 pm

LOL! Oh well! Thanks anyway, but I hope you can keep visiting me here once in a while. It gets kind of lonely when no one leaves any messages

By kia | May 26th, 2009 at 1:33 am

LOL! Afshin start something controversial and you’ll get lots of messages!!!!

Posted from United States

By Afshin Afshar | May 26th, 2009 at 1:48 am

Any suggestion kia jAn? I am all ears

By Hamid - Tehran | May 26th, 2009 at 2:47 am

Afshin jan, try to do a link exchange with IranSportsPress. They get lots of football mad Iranians visiting their site. So that may liven up your site a bit. Also, you may want to visit the Asian part of Goal.com and from time to time they write about Iran – you could put their news on your site and quote the source for copy right purposes. But I am not sure how that would affect your Google Ranking?

By Hamid - Tehran | May 26th, 2009 at 2:57 am

If you want to try something controversial as Kia suggested, how about trying the following:

“Beacause of the extreme importance of the 3 remaining matches of TM, Afshin Ghotbi will no longer be coaching the team as Ayatollah Khamenei has personally decided to take charge of the management of the team”

By Afshin Afshar | May 26th, 2009 at 8:25 am

Hee, hee, hee! That will do it!

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