‘It’s been crazy’: Alireza Jahanbakhsh on Iran’s journey to the World Cup and his unhappy time at Brighton

The Athletic – DOHA, It will send a shiver down the spine of Mason Mount when Alireza Jahanbakhsh lines up for Iran against his England side at the Khalifa International Stadium in both nations’ World Cup opener.

Mount was in the Chelsea team denied a victory away to Brighton & Hove Albion in January 2020 by an acrobatic overhead kick from Jahanbakhsh.

Nearly three years on from that spectacular late intervention at the Amex Stadium, Jahanbakhsh has the hopes of a nation on his shoulders as Iran prepare to begin its Group B campaign tomorrow (Monday).

“There were two or three of us, national team players, on a Zoom call watching the World Cup draw,” says Jahanbakhsh. “At that moment we were just laughing. The first impression was, ‘Oh, wow’. There was a lot of excitement.

“England could have three different national teams at the same time — a lot of quality players. They are one of the favourites to win the World Cup, so that says enough about England.

“It’s especially nice for me to play against England because I’ve played against most of these players.”

He is one of the players being used on promotional images emblazoned across skyscrapers in Qatar.

Jahanbakhsh steers clear of political controversies, but he did act as peacemaker in the Iranian squad’s troubled build-up to Qatar 2022. They qualified impressively under Dragan Skokic, but there was unrest with the Croatian’s methods. This summer Skokic was sacked, reinstated, then swiftly ditched again.

Jahanbakhsh, Iran’s captain during qualification, says: “Some players didn’t have a good relationship with the coach. They didn’t like the way he was playing. Some players had a very good relationship.

“Usually, in my experience, that’s kept in the team. He’s making decisions, everyone follows. That’s it. Things that happened were unprofessional. I can’t mention names, but there were people from outside who wanted to really affect the national team in terms of decisions and stuff.

“Unfortunately, there were players who followed that up, which was quite sad. We, as some of the more experienced players, tried to calm it down. We said, ‘OK, we’ll stay right in the middle, it’s not our decision’. I try to speak to most of the guys. Now is not the time to be messing up things. That just affects us in a negative way.

“Thank God, everything now is more calm and settled.”

Iran have turned back the clock to Carlos Queiroz, the Portuguese former assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. It was Queiroz who gave Jahanbakhsh, then 20, his senior international debut in 2013 during an eight-year first spell in charge that ended in 2019.

“He knows the players really well, the players know him really well,” Jahanbakhsh says. “I’ve learnt a lot from him as a person and as a football player.

“He was probably the only one that could come in and do the job straight away. He can help us a lot. It’s been crazy: making it to the World Cup, new president, new coach, new ideas…”

There are many reasons to write off Iran’s chances in Qatar, but the motivation for Jahanbakhsh is clear in his third World Cup. Iran never qualified for the knockout stages in five previous attempts, stretching back to their debut in Argentina in 1978.

“That’s something everybody talks about,” says Jahanbakhsh. “I’d be lying if I said the aim wasn’t to make it to the next round. That’s 100 per cent one of the biggest goals we have as players, the team, coaching staff, the nation. We’re going to work hard for it.”

Jahanbakhsh was born in Qazvin, in the north west of his homeland and a three-hour drive from the capital Tehran. The now 29-year-old right-winger’s first memory of the World Cup was the ”crazy“ atmosphere when he was four years old, as Iran recorded a famous 1-0 victory over the USA at the 1998 finals in France.

That match was preceded by two decades of a fraught political relationship between the countries. The presence of the US in Group B in Qatar, along with England and Wales, increases the intrigue. “England are favourites and there’s an equal chance for the other three teams,” Jahanbakhsh says.

He was still only 20 when he made his World Cup debut under Queiroz in 2014, coming off the bench in all three games as Iran lost to Argentina and Bosnia following an opening draw against Nigeria.

Iran got much closer to the last 16 in Russia four years ago.

Jahanbakhsh made his first World Cup start in a 1-0 win over Morocco, then came off the bench in a defeat to Spain by the same score.

He returned to the starting XI for a 1-1 draw with Portugal in a group finale which was laced with controversy, Cristiano Ronaldo escaping a red card late on following a VAR review after swinging an arm off the ball at Morteza Pouraliganji. Spain and Portugal went through with five points each, Iran had four and went home.

A 1-0 victory over Uruguay and 1-1 draw with African champions Senegal in their two September friendlies should serve as reminders to England and their fans that Iran are capable of troubling Gareth Southgate’s side.

Jahanbakhsh is older and wiser than he was at Russia 2018, too. “I’ve learnt a lot over the last four years,” he says. “I just want to look at it as the biggest stage to enjoy, to experience that feeling, to help my national team even more than the last World Cup.

“It’s the biggest stage there is in football. All the eyes around are on you. You just want to shine, to do your best. That’s something I’m really looking forward to.

“This could be an opportunity for me to make it even further in my career and make a bigger step.”

Jahanbakhsh has played in Europe for almost a decade having joined NEC Nijmegen, one of three clubs he’s represented in the Dutch Eredivisie, in the summer of 2013. Following a prolific 2017-18 season with AZ Alkmaar, Brighton signed him for a then-club record fee of £17million.

He became only the fourth Iranian to play in the Premier League after Karim Bagheri (Charlton Athletic, 2000-01), Andranik Teymourian (Bolton Wanderers and Fulham, 2006-09), and Ashkan Dejagah (Fulham 2012-14).

Brighton had just finished 15th under Chris Hughton in their first season back in the top flight after 34 years, but Jahanbakhsh’s debut campaign didn’t go well. Signed too late to integrate properly with a full pre-season, he then suffered an early hamstring injury before being absent for two months on international duty in the winter, helping Iran reach the semi-finals of the Asian Cup.

His numbers, unsurprisingly in the circumstances, fell off a cliff. He went from 21 goals and 12 assists in 33 games for Alkmaar, winning the Eredivisie’s Golden Boot in the process, to no goals or assists in 24 all-competitions appearances in 2018-19.

“I was getting calls from my friends and family,” he says, “saying ‘Are you really playing as a right-back (for Hughton)?’. I told them, ‘No, I’m a winger, he’s using me as a winger’, but in most of the games we just wanted to survive.”

The appointment of Graham Potter after Hughton was sacked at the end of that first season offered Jahanbakhsh fresh hope. Iran team-mate Saman Ghoddos, who is now at Brentford, had played for Potter at Swedish side Ostersund.

“He (Ghoddos) said he (Potter) loved to play attacking football, had his own strategy, which was very positive to me,” Jahanbakhsh says.

But the sporadic appearances continued.

That spectacular equaliser against Chelsea, four days after his first Premier League goal in a home win against Bournemouth, was a rare highlight of his Brighton career. Scoring four times in 37 appearances across two seasons under Potter only heightened Jahanbakhsh’s frustration.

“I spoke with the club, and Graham as well, after the second year,” he reveals. “My playing time wasn’t enough for me. It was also around that time that for the first time in seven or eight years I wasn’t called up for the national team, which was a big deal for me as well.

“They were really pushing me to stay, telling me that in the third year I’d get more chances. I pushed to go somewhere else. At the same time, I was happy at the club. Getting better and better, settling down.

“They convinced me to stay, promised things were going to get much better. I played some games, it was much better than the season before, but still not as much as I’d hoped for.”

Jahanbakhsh is enjoying his football again with Rotterdam-based Feyenoord in a country he regards as his second home.

They reached the first-ever Europa Conference League final last season, losing 1-0 to Jose Mourinho’s Roma. He has three assists in 10 Eredivisie appearances this season and in September scored twice in a 6-0 Europa League trouncing of Austria’s Sturm Graz.

“I had very big goals coming to Brighton,” says Jahanbakhsh. “I saw it more as a mid-stop to help me develop myself and then to make the next step.

“That’s the reason I’ve come to Feyenoord — one of the biggest clubs in Holland and also in European football; to get back to the level I used to be and the level that I know I can provide and hopefully make the next step.

“I don’t know where it’s going to be, but I’m looking forward to playing in the Premier League again.”