In the early morning of April 2, Beijing time, the group draw ceremony of the Qatar World Cup came to an end, for the grouping of each group, fans have their own judgment, there is no theoretical death group, but Spain and Germany, Belgium and Croatia joined forces to create a quarter of the death zone.
Asian teams were generally unlucky, with Iran being placed in Group B against Argentina, the United States and the winners of the European play-offs.
Why is the Iranian team mentioned separately?
The draw ceremony was star-studded, with football stars such as Cafu, Okocha and Milutinovic appearing, and when another legend of Asian football appeared, many fans could not recognize him without the introduction of the host and the subtitles below.
He is Iranian striker Ali Dei.
Unlike Cafu, who was smiling throughout the lottery ceremony, Dei had a dignified and rather serious expression, and he could not see a single smile on his face.
The 53-year-old Ali Dei has been visibly blessed, too fat to recognize. The "air bully" of that year is no longer young, after all, he is more than half a hundred years old.
Older fans may be more familiar with Ali Dei, from the 1997 World Cup qualifiers in the Asian group stage to the following year's Asian Games, the Chinese men's football team faced Iran four times, lost four consecutive games, and the "Isophobia" has been suffering from then on and has not been cured so far. In those four victories, the core figure of the Iranian team was Ali Dei.
With outstanding performances, in the summer of 1998 Ali Dei put on the Shirt of Bayern Munich, although not a main player in the league, but in a limited 32 substitute appearances, Ali Dei scored 6 goals, the performance is still satisfactory, he also followed the team to win the Bundesliga. In addition, Ali Dei also became the first player in the history of Asian football to appear in the European Champions League.
Ali Dei then moved to Hertha Berlin, making 62 appearances in two seasons as the team's starting centre-forward, scoring 12 goals.
At the national team level, he was the Most Valuable Player and Top Scorer at the 1994 Asian Games, the top scorer of the 1996 Asian Cup, and the Asian Footballer of the Year in 1999.
In 1996, the FIFA Committee on History and Data awarded the honor of top scorer to Ali Dei, who is also the top scorer in the history of the national team competition certified by FIFA and Guinness World Records (109 goals), a record that was surpassed by Cristiano Ronaldo many years later.