Ali Karimi at Bayern Munich

[Sly]

And here is Ali Karimi playing against Milan in the CL.

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing this.

Ali Karimi was indeed amazing defensively. He made a koo koo out of Seedort! His offensive game was a bit shallow with bad long passes a few times though.

Ps. LOL@ Guerrero in Bayern who was supposed to be "the" next amazing football player.

[ShiroKhorshid]

Cant believe 14 years have passed. I was 15. Remember it like yesterday. Comin home after training in time for the 2nd half, intime for Karimi to get subbed in. Just watched it again. Loved the ye pa do pa on Shevchenko and how he used his anticipation and body strength to get the ball from Seedorf & Kaka. Yadesh bekheir. We all not gettin any younger.😐

[ShiroKhorshid]

By the way was just on his insta profile. Karimi got an insane 5.6 milion insta followers. A player that has retired almost 6 years ago. Our current national team superstars (Sardar, Jahanbakhsh, ...) have 2 - 3 milion followers max. A popular guy like Dejagah is below 1 milion even. Shojaei less than half a milion. Just shows the legend status Karimi has despite even bein far from reachin his full potential.

[EKBATAN]

By the way was just on his insta profile. Karimi got an insane 5.6 milion insta followers. A player that has retired almost 6 years ago. Our current national team superstars (Sardar, Jahanbakhsh, ...) have 2 - 3 milion followers max. A popular guy like Dejagah is below 1 milion even. Shojaei less than half a milion. Just shows the legend status Karimi has despite even bein far from reachin his full potential.

That does say a lot...Del Piero has less than him, about 3.5
However insta numbers are highly inflated...there are a lot of fake accounts, bots, or a lot of businesses who just follow to get followers or maybe their owners are also fans. Add to that Iranians being extreeeemely active on social media, in general, a lot of our famous people have a huge following. For example i can watch a famous rapper or comedian here on IG live and they would have like 400 active people watching...then i watch Hossein Tohi and he got like 11k tuning in. He got almost 5M followers too lol

[ShiroKhorshid]

That does say a lot...Del Piero has less than him, about 3.5
However insta numbers are highly inflated...there are a lot of fake accounts, bots, or a lot of businesses who just follow to get followers or maybe their owners are also fans. Add to that Iranians being extreeeemely active on social media, in general, a lot of our famous people have a huge following. For example i can watch a famous rapper or comedian here on IG live and they would have like 400 active people watching...then i watch Hossein Tohi and he got like 11k tuning in. He got almost 5M followers too lol

Yes, you are right about iranians & insta, generally it seems like social media is a do or die thing for most people inside the country But thats why i, to put things into perspective, compared him to other iranian players, and those are the active ones. Jahanbakhsh, as one of our superstars and as a Premier League player, has 1.5 milion. Like i mentioned, a guy like Dejagah even below a milion. Thats why i say 5,6 milion is a crazy amount. His posts get up to 700-800K likes. One can only imagine what if he was 10 years younger and still active.

Dont get me wrong, at the end of the day its just social media but these things just show that he is a big time legend in our country despite bein far away from reachin the heights he should have.. He knows it, his friends and ex teammates know it, us people who know and follow football know it. With the talent he had he shoud have been a global superstar during his playing days.

[ShiroKhorshid]

Barcelona will be streaming their preseason match against Bayern from 2006 in a couple days. A quick Google search shows that Karimi started and played 70 minutes.

I think Barca smoked Bayern 4:0 that match? With Ronaldinho scorin a freekick. Think Karimi had an average performance and as always in his Bayern matches a perfect ball control and some good defensive actions. Too bad he only got to play like 4 or 5 matches in his natural #10 position. Still excited to watch the match tomorrow.

[Nokhodi]

I'm going to come in and be the bad guy... Karimi was mostly disappointment. Sure he could dribble and was a fan favorite for that reason, but to me he wasn't a guy we could ever really rely on or one who could open up a game.

His peak was Asia Cup 2004 and the rest was ok at best. I say this as a TM fan who followed him since 1998. Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

[perspolis#1]

I'm going to come in and be the bad guy... Karimi was mostly disappointment. Sure he could dribble and was a fan favorite for that reason, but to me he wasn't a guy we could ever really rely on or one who could open up a game.

His peak was Asia Cup 2004 and the rest was ok at best. I say this as a TM fan who followed him since 1998. Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

Maybe my memory is foggy of that era but we really were not a team unit and relied on individual moments for goals/assists, despite having a lot of firepower and talent..

I'm sure since Karimi had the most direct talent(dribbling) he was given the most responsibility to win games which led to inevitable disappointment.

[ShiroKhorshid]

Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

Are you sure about 2003? Off the top of my head i remember his amazing performances in Tehran against New Zealand (AFC/OFC cup) and away against North Korea (2004 Asian Cup qualifiers). He scored a brace in both games and was the mvp without a doubt. Also the return leg against North Korea at home he was amazing. His ball control and vision were out of this world. That was the game a Narenjak exploded and we were banned to have home fans for our first 2006 WC qualifiers against Qatar in Tehran in early 2004 (another Karimi show).

[ShiroKhorshid]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8woBQD8n8mY

By the way this is the highlights of that match against Qatar. Wish there was a link to the full match. He was outstanding. Just look at the move and pass leadin to the 1:0 and the penalty he got for the 3:0.

[Sly]

Karimi was great until a bit after the AC2004. His game started slowly but surely to regress after that and got totally destroyed with the German style in Bundesliga (even though he showed flashes of brilliance every now and then). Towards the last couple of years of his career, he was nothing but a slow dribbler, playing more as the opponent teams' 12th player.

[KasraKhan]

I'm going to come in and be the bad guy... Karimi was mostly disappointment. Sure he could dribble and was a fan favorite for that reason, but to me he wasn't a guy we could ever really rely on or one who could open up a game.
His peak was Asia Cup 2004 and the rest was ok at best. I say this as a TM fan who followed him since 1998. Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

I agree with you 95% of the time. But with all due respect, Nokhodi jan, this is one of the 5%.

Karimi couldn't open up a game? Really? That's all Karimi did lol. From 2002-2008, he was TM's best and most dangerous player.

Karimi was the best playmaker for TM I've seen in my last 23 years of fandom. And its not close. So if Karimi couldn't open up games, which TM player could?

[Babak agha]

I'm going to come in and be the bad guy... Karimi was mostly disappointment. Sure he could dribble and was a fan favorite for that reason, but to me he wasn't a guy we could ever really rely on or one who could open up a game.

His peak was Asia Cup 2004 and the rest was ok at best. I say this as a TM fan who followed him since 1998. Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

All I can say is: ???

[EKBATAN]

Yes, you are right about iranians & insta, generally it seems like social media is a do or die thing for most people inside the country But thats why i, to put things into perspective, compared him to other iranian players, and those are the active ones. Jahanbakhsh, as one of our superstars and as a Premier League player, has 1.5 milion. Like i mentioned, a guy like Dejagah even below a milion. Thats why i say 5,6 milion is a crazy amount. His posts get up to 700-800K likes. One can only imagine what if he was 10 years younger and still active.

Dont get me wrong, at the end of the day its just social media but these things just show that he is a big time legend in our country despite bein far away from reachin the heights he should have.. He knows it, his friends and ex teammates know it, us people who know and follow football know it. With the talent he had he shoud have been a global superstar during his playing days.

Having a big social media following is definitely a factor in transfers. Teams would love to get more followers by signing him, no matter how fake they are.

[EKBATAN]

I'm going to come in and be the bad guy... Karimi was mostly disappointment. Sure he could dribble and was a fan favorite for that reason, but to me he wasn't a guy we could ever really rely on or one who could open up a game.

His peak was Asia Cup 2004 and the rest was ok at best. I say this as a TM fan who followed him since 1998. Some of you forget in 2003 people were getting so disappointed with him that they wanted him off TM!

Definitely with you on this, i was so excited about him and talked him up so much, only to get disappointed. I mean it says a lot about his career if his biggest highlight is a missed shot off the cross bar. He probably had 10 good games at Bayern and thats it...really wasnt much of a factor for team melli after 2004