Biography
Early Years:
Born
in Ardebil, in 1969, Ali Daei started his love affair
with soccer by playing for
home team Esteghlal Ardebil at the age of 19. He missed
a chance to play in the J-League due to mandatory military
service. After playing for minor league teams such as Taxirani
and Bank Tejarat, he joined one of the Iran's greatest
teams Persepolis (Pirouzi). There he played for two years
before he was noticed by the big leagues.
The Big Leagues:
 Daei ventured
out of Iran for the first time when he signed on
with Germany's
Bundesliga.
From 1997 to 1998 he played for Arminia Bielefeld.
In 1998 he moved to Bayern Munich, where his reported
salary skyrocketed to a cool 4 million DM. Daei,
who was handpicked for
the
German team by legendary football player Franz Beckenbauer,
was regarded as a world-class center-forward. After
a successful career and much fame and fanfare followings
in Germany, Daei decided
to move to Hertha BSC. This occured before the end
of his three year contract with Bayern but was after
the team had won the 1999 Bundesliga. Daei played
in the Champions
League
with Hertha Berlin and gained the title of best
scorer in the league with
3 goals.
Daei has had a very
successful career in international
competition,
scoring
in almost every game he played. He made many new records
and played in World Teams
in
friendly
continental games. Even with all his success, Ali
Daei was unable to maintain a stable position in
the
starting
line-up.
He was not very happy about this, even though offers
poured in for him from teams such as Rapid Vienna, Glasgow
Rangers, the J-League and a few English Premiership
teams. Despite the offers, Daei decided to join
the U.A.E league at 34
years of
age,
signing a contract with Al-Shabab.
Daie is known as a
gentleman among all his fans and his fame is attributed
mostly
to his impressive goal
scoring. Due
to Iran's tournament schedule, he has played very few
matches for his team but he has scored frequently.
Without a doubt, Ali Daei remains one of the greatest
strikers in the history of
football and is ranked second in most goals in international
matches.  In the 1998 World Cup
Qualifying round, he scored
38
goals in 56 matches. There were the his famous
4 goals against Korea and 8 goals
against the Maldives. Daei was named the world's top
scorer in
official international competitions by the International
Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS),
having scored 20 goals for Iran
in 1996. On December 2, 2003, he scored
his 85th international goal in a match against Kuwait,
elevating him past Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas to
top the all-time
list of scorers in international matches.
Leading the Team Melli
in this year's World Cup Games, Ali Daei will be a force
to reckon with. Already at the top of list with 4 goals
in the Asia Zone, Daei hopes to make it to the World
Cups this year as Captain, with many fans to back him
up. Off the field, Daei does not seem to get enough
football. He owns
his
own
football
jersey manufacturing
company. They make jerseys
for Iranian
Premiership
clubs,
and for the Team Melli. Daei is also very generous and
has made very significant charitable donations to various
causes.
Image Gallery:
Famous Daei Matches: - 1998 World Cup Match - Iran vs. USA
- Daei play an average game. Iran wins.
- Hertha BSC vs. Chelsea
- 1999 - Iran vs. Japan
- 1998 Iran vs. Germany - 2003 Iran vs Kuwait - Daei passes Puskas
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Famous Iranians
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