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Getting to Know the Iranian National Team: Alireza Beiranvand

August 28, 2022
Payam Younesipour
6 min read
Goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand’s rags-to-riches story has become legend in Iranian football
Goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand’s rags-to-riches story has become legend in Iranian football
As a child growing up in a Khorramabad village, he worked as a shepherd until the age of 14 and was discouraged from study or play
As a child growing up in a Khorramabad village, he worked as a shepherd until the age of 14 and was discouraged from study or play
Beiranvand moved to Tehran without telling his family and slept rough while pursuing his dream of becoming a footballer
Beiranvand moved to Tehran without telling his family and slept rough while pursuing his dream of becoming a footballer
He became a household name in 2015 and today plays for Persepolis as well as the national team
He became a household name in 2015 and today plays for Persepolis as well as the national team

This article is part of a 22-part miniseries on the history and stars of Iranian football released ahead of Iran's participation in Group B of the 2022 Qatar World Cup in November. You can explore the rest of the series here.

 

Alireza Beiranvand’s life story has become well-known in Iranian football as a tale of perseverance and fortitude. Born September 21, 1992 in the village of Sarabias, Khorramabad, he was made to work as a shepherd until the age of 14, and discouraged by his father from either study or play.

In 2016, Beiranvand described part of his early years in a TV program aired by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting: “My father was against me playing football. Not just football, but all sports, and even studying; he said neither would be useful to us as a large family. He tore up my football kit and told me to go to work.”

He would give most of the money he earned to his father, but also saved a little for himself. After a while, he had enough savings to buy a coach ticket from Khorramabad to Tehran. He packed his stuff and left without seeking approval.

"With the money I’d saved,” he later recalled, “I got up one night and went to Tehran without my parents' permission. I said to myself even if the whole world disagreed, I’d pursue my dreams. I wanted to stay in my aunt's house, but there was no place for me there, so I roamed the streets. One day, I met Mr. Hossein Faiz on the bus. He came forward and asked, 'Are you an athlete?'."

Hossein Faiz was one of the most prominent coaches in Iranian football at the time. He told the 15-year-old Alireza that he was willing to give him a trial for 300,000 tomans (about $20 at that time). "I said, If I had that kind of money, I’d go and find somewhere to sleep,” Beiranvand said.

Despite insisting it was normal club policy, the coach eventually relented and allowed Beiranvand to audition for free. “He said he wouldn’t take any money from me, but to tell the other players that he had. There was a friendly game on. I did very well.

“Hossein handed me over to the team captain of the team and asked him not to let me go anywhere. I had no place to sleep. If you talk to the sleepers on the streets around Azadi Square, everyone knows me just because I was rough sleeping just next to it. One day one of the players told me his father had a sewing workshop where I could go to work and sleep. I used to sew until two o'clock in the morning, then slept, then worked again from seven in the morning until 12 noon, then went for training."

While taking part in a youth game in the capital, Beiranvand was spotted by the coach for Naft Tehran. Going to Naft meant losing the place to sleep in the sewing workshop, so he again returned to sleeping in the street near Azadi Square, before eventually finding bed and board at a pizza shop.

“It was more like exploitation than work,” he said later. “They woke me up at five in the morning and told me to wash the dishes and grease the pizza oven. I said it wasn’t fair, but they didn’t agree.”

Working eight hours a day, training and getting just four hours of sleep was too much for the 15-year-old, so he found a new job at a car wash. Once, he said, footballing legend Ali Daei came by. “They told me that because I was a football player, I should go and wash Ali Daei's car. I said ‘One day I’m going to play for Ali Daei, so I will not wash his car."

Eventually he landed an only slightly better job in Tehran Municipality. There was a big park in Khazaneh Bukharai neighborhood, which Alireza Beiranvand had to sweep every morning from five o'clock. "Someone introduced me to the municipality,” he said. “I went and got a sweeper's clothes, and I said to them, ‘Please don't send me to a crowded place because I am tall [at 202cm, Beiranvand is one of Iran’s tallest football players of all time] and everyone can see me.

“They said ‘Go and sweep the Khazaneh park, no-one goes to that park in the morning. But then one day, one of my relatives saw me. He called up my father and said, 'Did you think your son would become an athlete in Tehran? No dear, he’s sweeping the streets.'"

A little later, Beiranvand’s status as a football player and street cleaner was reported in Iranian media. Naft Club took action, offering him the prayer room of its parent company, an oil firm, to sleep in at night. “They just said I should get up at five in the morning and go sleep on the grass then, or the caretaker might give us grief.”

It was in April 2015, that Beiranvand became a household name in Iranian football. In the group stage of the Asian Champions League with Naft Tehran, his long throw that took the ball from Naft’s penalty area penalty area of ​​Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahly was publicized by FIFA, and described by the global football body as “the most exciting throw in the world”. Saudi Arabia’s Al-Masdar called the boot “unique and historic”, and the Asian Football Confederation called him “the man with unique arms”.

A video of the throw was watched by more than 100 million people worldwide. Asked about it later, Beiranvand said: “When I was a shepherd child, we had a fun game with the other kids; we’d pick up stones and throw them from our side of the mountain to the other side. Little by little, my hands grew strong."

In 2016, Alireza Beiranvand joined Persepolis FC in one of the club’s most expensive acquisitions on record. He managed to win four Premier League championships, one FA Cup championship, three Super Cup championships, and one runner-up in the Asian Champions League with that team.

He then joined Antwerp in Belgium in 2020, but played just 10 games that season before he was borrowed in 2021 by Portugal's Boavista. Finally in 2022 he returned to Persepolis in 2022 in order to regain a place on the Iranian national team.

Alireza Beiranvand has worn the national jersey 51 times in various national competitions and played in the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup. In 2019, he was a candidate for player of the year and best goalkeeper of the year. The previous year, he had won the latter title in the Asian Champions League.

One of Beiranvand’s other most-watched moments was when he blocked a penalty kick by Cristiano Ronaldo when Iran faced down Portugal in 2018. He also holds a Guinness World Record for the longest throw seen in a football match: more than 61 meters, in a 2016 game against South Korea.

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