{"id":47515,"date":"2022-11-20T17:45:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T01:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=47515"},"modified":"2022-11-20T17:46:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T01:46:00","slug":"its-been-crazy-alireza-jahanbakhsh-on-irans-journey-to-the-world-cup-and-his-unhappy-time-at-brighton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2022\/11\/20\/its-been-crazy-alireza-jahanbakhsh-on-irans-journey-to-the-world-cup-and-his-unhappy-time-at-brighton\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s been crazy\u2019: Alireza Jahanbakhsh on Iran\u2019s journey to the World Cup and his unhappy time at Brighton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Athletic – DOHA, It will send a shiver down the spine of Mason Mount when Alireza Jahanbakhsh lines up for\u00a0Iran\u00a0against his\u00a0England\u00a0side at the Khalifa International Stadium in both nations\u2019\u00a0World Cup\u00a0opener.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were two or three of us, national team players, on a Zoom call watching the World Cup draw,\u201d says Jahanbakhsh. \u201cAt that moment we were just laughing. The first impression was, \u2018Oh, wow\u2019. There was a lot of excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEngland could have three different national teams at the same time \u2014 a lot of quality players. They are one of the favourites to win the World Cup, so that says enough about England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s especially nice for me to play against England because I\u2019ve played against most of these players.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is one of the players being used on promotional images emblazoned across skyscrapers in Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh steers clear of political controversies, but he did act as peacemaker in the Iranian squad\u2019s troubled build-up to Qatar 2022. They qualified impressively under Dragan Skokic, but there was unrest with the Croatian\u2019s methods. This summer Skokic was sacked, reinstated, then swiftly ditched again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh, Iran\u2019s captain during qualification, says: \u201cSome players didn\u2019t have a good relationship with the coach. They didn\u2019t like the way he was playing. Some players had a very good relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually, in my experience, that\u2019s kept in the team. He\u2019s making decisions, everyone follows. That\u2019s it. Things that happened were unprofessional. I can\u2019t mention names, but there were people from outside who wanted to really affect the national team in terms of decisions and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, 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, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll stay right in the middle, it\u2019s not our decision\u2019. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank God, everything now is more calm and settled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe knows the players really well, the players know him really well,\u201d Jahanbakhsh says. \u201cI\u2019ve learnt a lot from him as a person and as a football player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was probably the only one that could come in and do the job straight away. He can help us a lot. It\u2019s been crazy: making it to the World Cup, new president, new coach, new ideas\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many reasons to write off Iran\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something everybody talks about,\u201d says Jahanbakhsh. \u201cI\u2019d be lying if I said the aim wasn\u2019t to make it to the next round. That\u2019s 100 per cent one of the biggest goals we have as players, the team, coaching staff, the nation. We\u2019re going to work hard for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s first memory of the World Cup was the \u201dcrazy\u201c atmosphere when he was four years old, as Iran recorded a famous 1-0 victory over the USA at the 1998 finals in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0Wales, increases the intrigue. \u201cEngland are favourites and there\u2019s an equal chance for the other three teams,\u201d Jahanbakhsh says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0Argentina\u00a0and Bosnia following an opening draw against Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran got much closer to the last 16 in Russia four years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh made his first World Cup start in a 1-0 win over\u00a0Morocco, then came off the bench in a defeat to\u00a0Spain\u00a0by the same score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned to the starting XI for a 1-1 draw with\u00a0Portugal\u00a0in a group finale which was laced with controversy,\u00a0Cristiano Ronaldo\u00a0escaping 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 1-0 victory over\u00a0Uruguay\u00a0and 1-1 draw with African champions\u00a0Senegal\u00a0in their two September friendlies should serve as reminders to England and their fans that Iran are capable of troubling Gareth Southgate\u2019s side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh is older and wiser than he was at Russia 2018, too. \u201cI\u2019ve learnt a lot over the last four years,\u201d he says. \u201cI 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest stage there is in football. All the eyes around are on you. You just want to shine, to do your best. That\u2019s something I\u2019m really looking forward to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis could be an opportunity for me to make it even further in my career and make a bigger step.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh has played in Europe for almost a decade having joined NEC Nijmegen, one of three clubs he\u2019s 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 \u00a317million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He became only the fourth Iranian to play in the\u00a0Premier League\u00a0after Karim Bagheri (Charlton Athletic, 2000-01), Andranik Teymourian (Bolton Wanderers and Fulham, 2006-09), and Ashkan Dejagah (Fulham 2012-14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brighton had just finished 15th under Chris Hughton in their first season back in the top flight after 34 years, but Jahanbakhsh\u2019s debut campaign didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s Golden Boot in the process, to no goals or assists in 24 all-competitions appearances in 2018-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was getting calls from my friends and family,\u201d he says, \u201csaying \u2018Are you really playing as a right-back (for Hughton)?\u2019. I told them, \u2018No, I\u2019m a winger, he\u2019s using me as a winger\u2019, but in most of the games we just wanted to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appointment of Graham Potter after Hughton was sacked at the end of that first season offered Jahanbakhsh fresh hope. Iran team-mate\u00a0Saman Ghoddos, who is now at Brentford, had played for Potter at Swedish side Ostersund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe (Ghoddos) said he (Potter) loved to play attacking football, had his own strategy, which was very positive to me,\u201d Jahanbakhsh says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the sporadic appearances continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spoke with the club, and Graham as well, after the second year,\u201d he reveals. \u201cMy playing time wasn\u2019t enough for me. It was also around that time that for the first time in seven or eight years I wasn\u2019t called up for the national team, which was a big deal for me as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were really pushing me to stay, telling me that in the third year I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey 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\u2019d hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jahanbakhsh is enjoying his football again with Rotterdam-based Feyenoord in a country he regards as his second home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They reached the first-ever Europa Conference League final last season, losing 1-0 to Jose Mourinho\u2019s Roma. He has three assists in 10 Eredivisie appearances this season and in September scored twice in a 6-0\u00a0Europa League\u00a0trouncing of Austria\u2019s Sturm Graz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had very big goals coming to Brighton,\u201d says Jahanbakhsh. \u201cI saw it more as a mid-stop to help me develop myself and then to make the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the reason I\u2019ve come to Feyenoord \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going to be, but I\u2019m looking forward to playing in the Premier League again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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