PFDC - KREFELD, All over the world, players of Iranian origin try to make their way as football players. As the recent invitation of Ferydoon Zandi showed, that some of those passionate foreign born Iranian youngsters have the quality needed to one day help their national side. Below, Amir Dadgar introduces the talented Alexander Nouri to Iranian Football fans.

Alexander Nouri, the "talent of the Decade of the North", as he was called by some experts, had been appointed as a German A-junior player by the SV Werder Bremen coach, Wolfgang Sidka, in the professional group in 1998. At the age of 18, he had already played in the UI Cup and qualified with Werder Bremen for the UEFA Cup. For the son of an Iranian father and a German mother all the doors of professional football were open for him.

It was clear at a young age, that Nouri possessed an unusual talent for football. From BSV Buxtehude he had moved to SC Vorwaertz Wacker Billstedt 04 and then finally to the top German club SV Werder Bremen. Additionally to this development, he had gone through the U15 and U16 training courses of the DFB (German Football Federation) and in 1996, he represented Germany in the European Championship qualification in more than 30 international matches.

The European championships in Austria had represented the highest point for Nouri in 1996. He had played against football-giants like Michael Owen, Wes Brown, Emre or Nuno Gomez. Within the German team he had succeeded in the internal battle as central midfield player over the now German Superstar Sebastian Deisler, culminating in reaching the semi finals with Germany.

Unfortunately this successful story of the 24-year-old midfielder had a small interruption in the winter of 1998. In training he broke his ankle, having to undergo several surgeries and was forced to take a break of a few months from football, leading to a very frustrating time. Alexander Nouri made his comeback in 1999, however the situation he had left, had now changed. Wolfgang Sidka had been replaced by Felix Magath and also the amateur coach at that time, Thomas Schaaf, didn?t want to take the risk with the now recovered from injury Nouri.

In order to get playing time, Nouri moved to the United States to play for the Seattle Sounders in the A-League where he played for six months. There, Neil Farnsworth, the owner of Seattle Sounders and manager of the software giant Microsoft, accommodated Nouri in his house, only three roads away from the house of a certain Bill Gates.

After a half year in the USA Nouri went back to Bremen in October 1999, but saw no big opportunity to enter the professional league and signed with third division team KFC Uerdingen 05 the following season. He has know been playing for three years at Uerdingen wearing the number 10 jersey and proving his quality in Krefeld.

However, at the end of this season the half-Iranian's contract will run out. Nouri wants to try to gain a foothold within the professional league. "As a child it was always my dream to play in the Bundesliga. I would not like to look at the end of my career as only been third league player. I also would not discount the possibility to gain experience abroad, too."  Despite the bad injury, Alexander Nouri is pleased with his performance so far. "Reviersport", the trade paper for the third league, recently named him as strongest technically and the best midfield player of the league.

When being asked about the Iranian national team, Nouri's eyes sparkle. "When ever possible, I try and follow each game of Team Melli, where I think Branko Ivankovic has proved to be one of the best coaches and does an incredible job." Being asked about a possible carear in the national team one day, Nouri takes a large breath.

"It would be the greatest honour and my biggest dream to be allowed to play for Iran", he says. "For a football player, there cannot be anything more beautiful than to play in the Azadi Stadium in front of 100.000 fantastic supporters and to know, that over 80 million people follow you all over the world, to tremble for you and pray for you. If I'd ever get such a chance, I would immediately fly to Teheran."

Eventually Alexander Nouri says goodbye in perfect Farsi. "Persian is my culture, my tradition. I am Iranian and will always be."