Tasnim – Iran national football team coach Carlos Queiroz compared Brighton winger Alireza Jahanbakhsh to Cristiano Ronaldo.
Brighton signed Jahanbakhsh on a £17m deal in late July. It may prove one of the deals of the season.
It bought them a robust, speedy and direct winger who was the first Asian to be top scorer in a significant European league and who, in a humbler way, has undergone the same growth process as a player as Ronaldo.
“When a player starts to score he gets that addictive taste behind the tongue. And the more he scores, the more he becomes addicted to scoring,” Carlos Queiroz told the Sunday Times.
“This is how Ali grew up and I compare it to Cristiano. His development was the same,” according to the man who mentored them both.