Ghoochannejhad the Golden Boy of Iranian football

Persianfootball.com – TEHRAN, The Iranian striker Reza Ghoochannejhad with his decisive away goals against Qatar and South Korea undoubtedly can be called the Golden Boy of Iranian football.

In the absence of genuine goal scorers in Iran, Carlos Queiroz trusted in Standard Liège striker Reza Ghoochannejhad, nicknamed “Gucci” in Europe because his teammates often struggled to pronounce his name correctly, and invited him to the Team Melli camp.

Reza Ghoochannejhad was born in Mashad but moved to the Netherlands with his family when being five years old. Coming from a football-crazy family which had migrated to Iran from today’s Turkmenistan two generations before, many of his relatives were playing professional football as well. Reza’s father, Jamil Ghoochannejhad, for example had played for football for Shahin Mashad.

The talented boy should finally give his professional football debut for Heerenveen in Dutch Eredivisie, and although moving to second league soon and spending five seasons there before moving to Belgium’s first league, the left-footer has an impressive scoring record, having netted 52 times in 120 games in his club career so far.

“Gucci” finally played his first Team Melli match against South Korea in Azadi stadium in front of 100,000 fans, when due to captain Javad Nekounam’s goal Iran defeated their fierce rivals 1-0. Following the bitter 0-1 defeat to Uzbekistan in Azadi, in which Ghoochannejhad earned his second cap, the nimble striker finally scored his debut goals for Iran when nettin twice in a 5-0 routing of Lebanon in Asian Cup qualifying in February.

With three games left in World Cup qualifying and only seven points collected so far, Iran needed to win the three remaining World Cup qualifiers in group A of Asia in order to advance automatically to the finals of the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

Eventually, the final three exciting weeks arrived with Iran playing its first crucial match in Doha on June 6, 2013.

“Gucci” arrived in top form following three goals and two assists in his final two season appearances for Standard Liege, after having been ignored by the meanwhile removed coach Mircea Rednic for most of the season before.

Thanks to the decisive second half goal by Ghoochannejhad, Iran won 1-0 in Doha, making the 25-year-old the matchwinner.

A week later on June 13, an outstanding performance by Team Melli resulted in a 4-0 crashing of Lebanon in front of a sensational crowd at the Azadi Stadium where Ghoochannejhad again got his name on the socresheet, this time scoring the third goal.

The grand finale came when Team Melli travelled to Ulsan to play its final qualifier in group A against South Korea, the Asian power house and long time rival.

On June 18, 2013 at Ulsan stadium, Reza Ghoochannejhad once more became the man of the match when he capitalized on a Korean defensive error to score the only goal of the match and as a result Iran earned their fourth ever World Cup appearance after 1978, 1998 and 2006.

The saga of Khodadad Azizi at Melbourne was repeated by another boy from Mashhad named Reza who became the Iranian hero this time at Ulsan.

With his decisive goals Ghoochannejhad became the Golden Boy of Iranian football which of course only became possible due to heroic and hard work of all Team Melli players and of course Carlos Queiroz the Team Melli coach, as the humble striker repeatedly pointed out himself.