Asian Cup launch pad for Iran superstars

AFC – DOHA, For Khodadad Azizi, the 1996 edition of the AFC Asian Cup will always hold special memories, even if Team Melli did not emerge victorious at the end of the campaign.

Named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player – a precursor to his crowning as AFC Player of the Year for 1996 – the diminutive striker was at the cutting edge of a new generation of talent that would see the Iranians sit amongst the region’s leaders for a decade.

Qualification for the finals of the FIFA World Cup followed in both 1998 and 2006, but the roots of Iran’s revival lie back in December 1996, when Mohamed Mayeli Kohan’s swashbuckling team launched the careers of Azizi, Ali Daei and Karim Bagheri.

“It’s not only personally memorable, it was memorable for the whole Iranian football community,” says Azizi.

“What started at the Asian Cup continued until the 1998 World Cup and even until the 2006 World Cup. It was the start of a big movement in Iranian football.

“Those who became superstars in 1996 took Iranian football to another level for about 10 years and since that generation stopped played, the standard has gone back to how it was before.

“Everything happened in those 10 years and it all started at the Asian Cup in 1996. It was a different period of Iranian football.”

Prior to Iran’s arrival in Dubai for the group stages of the tournament – when they were drawn to face Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Thailand – the expectations surrounding the Iranians were relatively low.

Iran had not won the AFC Asian Cup since 1976 and, save for sharing the gold medal at the Asian Games in 1990 with DPR Korea, the country had rarely challenged the continent’s leading teams.

That, though, was all to change in the UAE and it was largely down to the talents of attacking duo Daei and Azizi, who were more than ably assisted by the dynamic midfield talents of Bagheri. Elsewhere, the team boasted the burgeoning superstar that was Mehdi Mahdavikia and midfielders such as Hamid Reza Estili and Mehrdad Minavand.

The campaign did not have the best start, however, with a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Iraq but wins over the Thais and the Saudis ensured Iran finished top of their group, setting up a quarter-final clash with Korea Republic.

It was then that the Iranians came into their own, destroying their opponents with a 6-2 win – with Azizi among the scorers – to set up a semi-final showdown with the Saudis.

It was here that Iran’s run was to end when, after a 0-0 draw, Mohammad Khakpour’s missed penalty in a shootout saw the Saudis advance to the final, where they would defeat hosts the UAE to win their third title.

The Iranians went on to beat Kuwait in the third-place play-off to garner some consolation but it is the loss to Saudi Arabia that still sticks in the mind of Azizi.

“Usually good results don’t stay with me for a long time but I felt we should have won that game,” he says. “I believe that we deserved to go to the final and become champion. The Saudis beat the Emirates and I’m sure we could have done so as well.”

Despite finishing in third place, Azizi stresses that the team’s run to the last four came as a surprise to everyone within the game in Iran.

“Frankly speaking, we didn’t expect anything to happen,” he says.

“Before that, everything was normal but what was happening at the Asian Cup, match-by-match, it just happened and gave a big boost to football in Iran. None of us could have predicted such a thing would happen.

“It was a big surprise for everybody in Iranian football and the sign of that surprise was the huge number of people who turned up to see us at the airport when we returned home, even though we only finished third.”

The performance of Iran at that AFC Asian Cup was the spur that saw many within the team move to Europe. Daei and Bagheri joined Bundesliga side Arminia Bielefeld while Azizi signed for FC Koln.

“That Asian Cup was not only a big initiation for me, but for Ali Daei and Mehdi Mahdavikia and Karim Bagheri and players like that,” he says.

“We were able to make moves to European clubs and that’s one of the good memories for me and also for Iranian football.”

Iran would also go on to qualify for the finals of the 1998 FIFA World Cup after enduring a rollercoaster ride that saw them race out of the blocks before faltering and losing out on an automatic qualifying place to the Saudis.

A play-off loss against Japan set-up a clash with Australia, which Iran won on the away goals rule thanks to Azizi’s late strike at the world famous Melbourne Cricket Ground, a strike that silenced the vast majority within the 95,000-seater stadium and sent Iran to their first World Cup in 20 years.

“In contrast with football in South Korea or Japan, in Iranian football there is no stability and discipline,” says Azizi.

“We won a couple of matches at the beginning of the 1998 World Cup qualifying campaign and we thought everything was done, but then we started losing: to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“The only thing that I can say is that it is because of a lack of stability. Sometimes Iran is shining and other days it is lower than zero. To me, the history of Iranian football is always being repeated.

“When it comes to the match against Australia, every second of that day was memorable. But Iranian football is emotional football and what we did was play emotionally and we won, but I’m sure if we played against them 10 more times we would not be able to beat them again. It was all about playing emotionally.”