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IRNA - Iran's top Bundesliga legionaries are
to end an extremely disappointing season in terms of their own performances.
Bayern Munich's Ali Karimi and Hamburg's Mehdi Mahdavikia could not fill the
high expectations of their clubs and are already looking to move on to new
teams.
Even Hanover's Vahid Hashemian could be traded to another club as he has
been linked in the German sports media to already relegated Bundesliga team
Borussia Moenchengladbach.
No Iranian Bundesliga star has frustrated football fans more than Ali Karimi
who joined the German record champions in summer of 2005.
While he performed well in his first season with Bayern, Karimi fell in a
deep hole during the 2006-7 season, having scored no goals and provided one
assist in only 12 games.
Bogged down by a string of injuries at the start of the season, Karimi who
was regarded in the press as a possible candidate for taking over Michael
Ballack's playmaker position, never managed to secure a spot on the starting
roster.
Bayern officials lamented also that Karimi had not made any serious efforts
to learn the German language which would have made it easier for him to get
accepted within the team.
It was also never a secret that Bayern only signed Karimi because former
Munich coach Felix Magath insisted on it, while powerful Bayern manager Uli
Hoeness had strong doubts about signing Asia's Footballer of the Year 2004.
Another player who will join Karimi on the football trading bloc, will be
HSV's Mahdavikia, set to depart the north German club after eight mostly
successful seasons.
A Hamburg fan favorite for many years, Mahdavikia has played below average
this season, given his salary estimated reportedly at 2.3 million euros per
year.
The 30-year-old defender netted two goals and had four assists in 26
matches, however HSV management made it clear that Mahdavikia who has been
targeted by other Bundesliga teams, was free to leave the club.
Like Karimi, the former Pirouzi striker was also sidelined by an injury at
the beginning of the season and faced deep personal problems which may have
contributed to his mediocre performances at HSV.
Mahdavikia was also confronted with the reality, that Hamburg, as a team,
was perhaps the biggest flop of this year's Bundesliga.
With one game to go in this season, Hamburg is ranked only 9th in the
18-team Bundesliga standings.
In terms of overall Bundesliga statistics, Hanover forward Vahid Hashemian
was the best Iranian Bundesliga player this season, having scored four goals
and contributed four assists in 30 matches.
Yet Hashemian's future at Hanover remains unclear, although his present
contract runs until mid-2008.
The Iranian international whose earlier Bundesliga stints included Bayern
Munich, VfL Bochum and Hamburger SV, has repeatedly been the subject of
transfer speculations in the German press.
A bright spot in this season was the rise of a new crop of young Iranian
Bundesliga players who were either born or raised in Germany.
These young players, among them Hertha Berlin's Ashkan Dejagah, Hansa
Rostock's Amir Shapourzadeh and HSV's Sassan Gohari, have caught the
attention of the Iranian Football Federation for quite some time, since all
of them would be eligible to play for Iranian national team.
Playing in his second professional season with Berlin, Dejagah made it into
the first team by scoring one goal and having four assists in 21 games.
Iranian-born Dejagah who is a member of Germany's Under-21 national football
team, has already signed a new deal with Berlin rival VfL Wolfsburg for next
season.
Dejagah is regarded as one of the Germany's great football hopes by experts.
According to former German national team assistant coach Michael Skibbe,
Dejagah has "excellent prospects" to join the A-team in the near future.
Another Iranian player who could make headlines next year in the first
German Bundesliga, is Amir Shapourzadeh whose second division club Hansa
Rostock is on the verge of being promoted.
In his first professional year, Shapourzadeh played an important factor in
Rostock's strong showing this season with four goals and three assists.
One lesser known Iranian footballer who could soon follow in the footsteps
of Shapourzadeh and Dejagah is Hamburger SV's Sassan Gohari.
Playing for Hamburg's amateur division, Gohari had been nominated for HSV's
professional lineup last fall when the club had a shortage of defenders due
to a string of injuries, however Gohari has yet to make his debut in the
Bundesliga.
A player who for now has disappeared from the German football scene, is
former Iranian international Fereydoun Zandi.
The ex-Kaiserslautern player had a short engagement at second division club
TuS Koblenz last fall before moving to lowly Cypriote club Apollon FC.
Battling numerous injuries last year, Zandi believed that a transfer to
Cyprus would be the right place to attempt a new beginning in his
professional football career.
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