{"id":34994,"date":"2019-01-13T09:28:01","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T17:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=34994"},"modified":"2019-01-13T09:28:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-13T17:28:01","slug":"from-shock-retirement-to-stunning-opponents-again-the-story-of-irans-sardar-azmoun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/01\/13\/from-shock-retirement-to-stunning-opponents-again-the-story-of-irans-sardar-azmoun\/","title":{"rendered":"From shock retirement to stunning opponents again \u2013 The story of Iran\u2019s Sardar Azmoun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fox Sports Asia &#8211; AL AIN, <strong>Being your country\u2019s leading striker at the FIFA World Cup one day.&nbsp;Shocking the world by retiring from international football at the age of 23 the next! This is the story of Iran\u2019s Sardar Azmoun.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It came as a shocker to the football world when Sardar Azmoun announced his retirement from international football at the age of 23 last June! He had just returned from an unsuccessful campaign with his national team Iran in the biggest sporting event on the planet \u2014 the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Azmoun had scored a whopping 23 goals from just 33 appearances for\u00a0<em>Team Melli<\/em>\u00a0then \u00a0\u2014 including 11 goals from 14 matches in the qualifiers. The youngster from\u00a0Gonbad-e Kavus in northern Iran was also growing a reputation for himself in Europe playing with Rubin Kazan in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Starting the World Cup in Russia as Iran\u2019s greatest hope, Azmoun blanked against Spain, Portugal and Morocco in matches where he would have been expected to make a difference. &nbsp;The result? A disappointing group stage exit for Carlos Queiroz\u2019s men.&nbsp;It could be said that his troubles had much to do with the reputation he head build for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy mother had overcome a serious illness and I was happy.&nbsp;Unfortunately because of the unkindness of some people, and the insults that me and my team-mates in no way deserved, her illness has become severe. This has put me in a difficult position where I must pick one or the other \u2013 and as a result I pick my mother,\u201d Azmoun said announcing his shock retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Azmoun, who was also a decent volleyball player in his childhood, made his international debut for Iran at the age of 19 and within no time, he had gone on to take the fifth spot in country\u2019s all-time top scorers\u2019 list. Parallels with Iran great Ali Daei was already drawn and many expected him to follow <g class=\"gr_ gr_4 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace\" id=\"4\" data-gr-id=\"4\">on<\/g> the footsteps of the former Bayern Munich star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have young strikers and the future will belong to them, especially Sardar because he\u2019s really young.\u00a0He can have a bright future. I\u2019m hoping he can choose the right route, that he can go in the right direction for himself and also for our national team.\u201d\u2013 Ali Daei, former Iran striker\u00a0in May 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seeing the damage his absence could do to the national team, Iran\u2019s Portuguese coach Queiroz and captain Masoud Shojaei did their best to convince Azmoun to return to the national camp. It worked as after a four months\u2019 absence, the former FC Rostov man returned to&nbsp;<em>Team Melli<\/em>training last October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After failing to find the back of Iran since March 2018, Azmoun scored his first for the team in a friendly match against Qatar at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha on December 31 and announced he is fully prepared for the AFC Asian Cup 2019 as Iran go in search of a first Asian title in 43 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what a difference he has made to the team. With Iran struggling with injuries to key players including their Premier League attacker Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Azmoun has filled the shoes of the missing stars and is hoping to guide Team Melli to their fourth Asian Cup title come February 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In their 5-0 thrashing of Yemen in the opening match of the Asian Cup, Azmoun found the back of the net in the 53rd minute. However,\u00a0he made an even bigger contribution in the next game against Southeast Asian champions Vietnam\u00a0opening the scoring in the 38th minute and then doubling the team\u2019s lead in the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He is now the tournament\u2019s top goalscorer with three goals from two matches. Iran are preparing to face Iraq in their final group match of the tournament with qualification already guaranteed, however, the memories of the 2015 Asian Cup will still be fresh in the Iranians\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Azmoun had opened the scoring for the national team in the quarterfinals in Australia back then, but Iraq fought back and drew the game 3-3 before knocking Iran out in penalty shootouts. Iran looking to avenge the defeat from 2015 when the two teams meet on January 16 will be one of the subplots of Match day 3 of the Asian Cup 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the bigger question in the minds of Iran fans will be whether their rejuvenated striker will be finally able to deliver on his promise and bring the Asian Cup trophy back to Iran after a gap of 43 years!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fox Sports Asia &#8211; AL AIN, Being your country\u2019s leading striker at the FIFA World&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":34995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,175,84,92,89,93,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-asian-cup","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":1267,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34996,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34994\/revisions\/34996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}