These days, not much good news comes out of Iran’s football. Right after the surprising qualification of Team Melli to FIFA 2104 World Cup, series of bad news ensued as if the win in Ulsan was a jinx for Iran’s football. .

The latest bad news relates to the fortune and fate of Iranian legionnaires players in Europe.

To start with, the number of Iranian players in European leagues can be counted by the fingers of a person’s hand. Dejagah, Ghoochannejad , Shojaei, Nazari, Shapourzadeh, Jahanbakhsh and Davari are about the only recognized  Iranian players in Europe, The last two have not represented Team Melli at international level yet.

Dejagah, Ghoochannejad , and Shojaei are the most recognized & prominent of the group each playing in a different league. Dejagah , who started his professional career at Hertha Berlin in 2004 , and later transferred to vfl Wolfsburg, had quite a successful time and  was one of the influential players of  the Bundesliga team. He was even selected to represent Germany at youth level. In 2012 he was bought by the English premiere league Fulham.  While not always a starting player, Dejagah took some time before he established himself at the London club but an bad ankle injury on 1 April against QPR spelled the end of the season for the Midfield player. Dejagah also missed the last 3 crucial matches for Team Melli in the World Cup qualifiers as well.

This season, after recuperating and fully recovering from his injury, Dejagah made one appearance only in the League Cup, while not even listed on the bench for the 3 matches that Fulham have played in the English Premiere League (EPL).  Fulham is lingering at the bottom of the league table.

Reza Ghoochanejad, the hero of Team Melli in the World Cup qualifiers and the darling of the fans, has not featured at all for Standard Liège under Israeli coach G. Luzon. The Liège based club is currently leading the Belgian league with maximum points after 6 games. In some games, Ghoocahnejad was not even made the bench list.

Next door to Ghoochanejad, is where the young Alireza  Jahanbakhsh , plays his football in the Eredivisie club NEC . Jahanbakhsh who represented Team Melli at different youth levels and excelled in the recent Asian competitions, joined the Dutch club NEC at the start of the season. However, out of the 5 matches so far, Jahanbaksh played a cameo role turning up as late substitute on 3 occasions. His total playing time not exceeding 20 minutes in those 3 matches.

NEC is lying right at the bottom of the Eredivisie

The most senior player of the list is Masoud Shojae Soleimani. A player with so much promise only a few years ago. The wizard whose skills was compared favorably to Ali Karimi. The midfielder joined the la Liga club Osasuna to partner his Team Melli mate, Javad Nekounam. While Nekounam established himself as a prominent fixed player for the Pamplona club, Shojaei was always the fringe player.   To add to his frustration of not managing a regular starting role, Shojaei suffered a very bad injury which resulted in him missing a whole season after going through multiple operations. At the end of last season, Osasuna released Shojae as the club did not wish to renew his contract. Masoud, has been looking for a club since then and with 3 weeks into the La Liga season , he has yet to sign for any club, although he has been training and practicing with a third division outfit in Spain.

As it happens, Osasuna are also right at the bottom of the La Liga after 3 defeats out of 3.

Amir Shapourzadeh who featurd briefly for Team Melli is playing in a regional league in Germany.  Omid Nazari plays for Ängelholms FF in Superettan as a center midfielder. The Swedish league is well into its schedule with round 22 played last weekend. Nazari played in 19 matches, scoring 1 goal. Daniel Davari plays in the Bundesliga club Eintracht Braunschweig. The club won promotion last season but are lying right at the bottom of the league with 5 losses out of 5 games of this season.

With such records, the outlook of the Iranian players is far from rosy in European league. The Bundesliga, which once had a handful of Iranian players, has no Iranian players, bar Davari who is German born.  This is possibly indicative of the sub-standard products that are coming out of Iran.

There are other factors as well such as the lack of ambition of Iranian players due to unfavorable financial incentives. Players in Iran are paid handsomely well beyond their true worth, according to many experts. With such handsome wages, there is very little incentive to play in the challenging and very demanding European leagues which has strict discipline codes and requires delivery and good performance.

Whether the absence of Iranian players in European leagues has negative effects on Team Melli in the World Cup is debatable.  However, there is no doubt that European league professional experience is an added bonus for any national team which has aspirations to excel.  Even the Latin American players, who are looking to improve their standard and financial status, look at Europe as a natural progression step in their careers.

There are certain characteristics and qualities that the local Iranian league cannot provide for the players. Professional mentality is just one of many that is severely lacking in Iran. Teamwork, individual and Team discipline, modern passing game, strong competitions, psychological preparation and many others features which can help develop Iranian players, does not feature strongly in Iranian leagues.

With all that in mind, Carlos Queiroz can be excused for turning towards Europe to find Iranian players.