GOAL - In the first of a series of features on the heroes behind the scenes of the Asian Cup, Goal explores the expat community set to cheer on a regional powerhouse.

There are two parts to Mehdi Soodi's role as a 2015 AFC Asian Cup community ambassador. The first is to get Australia's Iranian community involved in the tournament and if preliminary reports of ticket sales for Iran matches are accurate, he's doing a first-rate job.

The second could be tougher. Soodi wants to get those fans practicing their chants for the matches in a bid to encourage the team, who weren't exactly easy on the eye at the 2014 World Cup, to attack.

“We will be really encouraging the team to attack more, and not be conservative,” Soodi says.

“We will be calling upon the team and individual players like Ashkan Dejagah, who played in the Premier League in England, to attack more and more and more.

“We’ve made a YouTube video, which I’ve spread through social media, so people can all sing the same chant together and we can have a spectacular event there on that day.”

Iran is one of the most successful teams in Asia. They are the highest-ranked team in the confederation, coming in at 51 in the overall FIFA rankings, and have lifted the Asian Cup three times (though not in almost 40 years).

They can expect plenty of support when they kick off the 2015 campaign in Melbourne against Bahrain on January 11. Soodi says tickets to that game are selling faster than tickets for any other match outside of the opening night, and he expects Iranians to take up half the stadium.

“Iranians love soccer. Iranians are like the Brazilians,” he says.

“The main sport in Iran has always been soccer.

“We having been pushing as well for families to attend. In Iran itself, ladies and families are not allowed to attend. Only men are. Here, things are different, so I’ve been pushing really hard for families to attend.”

Soodi is a metallurgist who moved to Australia on a skilled migration visa early in the last decade. In his spare time, he is tirelessly committed to helping Victoria’s Iranian community, and has become the president of the state’s Australian-Iranian Society.

“Since I migrated here 13 years ago with my family, I’ve always been working for the welfare and the culture of the Iranian community in Australia. I also work with non-Iranian organisations, like the Red Cross and the Smith Family.

“Anything that helps the community I love to be a part of, so when the Asian Cup Organising Committee approached me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to help?’, I said ‘Yes, by all means’. It’s such a positive event.”

One of the great paradoxes of sport is that by setting two countries against each other it can bring them closer together, and Soodi says the Asian Cup will be a chance for the countries involved to become better neighbours with one another.

He is keen for people to see a side to Iran ignored by the nightly news. “(It’s a chance to show) how peaceful the Iranian community is, show we are there to contribute to such multicultural events, disregard all international political quarrels.

“It’s a great opportunity for the world, for the Asian community, to watch each other, to see how the real people are, disregarding the governments.”