BETTING ON ALI KARIMI

For years, Iranian football press and fans alike encouraged Karimi to move to a respectable European team.

For years, most of us ridiculed the level of football Karimi’s club played and how playing there had taken Karimi’s football quality backward.

For years we complained how players with potential as well as established players like Majidi, Karimi or Nikbahkt lose their effectiveness while making money south of the Persian Gulf.

For years we complained how lazy Ali Karimi was and how selfish he was by staying down south and wasting his talent and therefore depriving our national team from a true star.

Something strange happened a couple of months ago.

The lazy player, the carefree player, the player who liked to be treated like a king, listened to all of us, listened to his heart or brain or both and signed with an European club.

Well, he didn’t simply sign with any club. Karimi signed with one of the best clubs in the world and certainly the best in Germany.

Certainly, we the critics and the fans and the media should have been happy about Karimi’s signing.

Not exactly!

He won’t make it. He is too lazy. There are many like him in Brazil and he has to change his style. Would he last 90 minutes on the pitch in a fast German match? Would he last 60 minutes? Better yet, would he last one half in a real match? Any takers? Who paid whom to get Karimi to Germany? Kicker magazine’s editor (Germany’s premier football magazine) wrote Karimi will return home to UAE by winter? HOME you may ask? Since when United Arab Emirate is home? Never mind. Karimi will not be able to adjust. …and on and on and on and on.

We all agreed that Karimi’s style of play will not fit with Bayern as he is usually late in passing the ball to an open player.

I was one of them. I was a part of the group, a member of the chorus, that wanted Karimi move to Europe and I was also one of many who said privately and semi-publicly that Karimi should have moved to Spain or France but not Germany.

Another strange phenomena took place.

Ali Karimi simply said that he will silence his critics on the field. Ali Karimi showed maturity in dealing with critics. Ali Karimi took up German language lessons. Ali Karimi attended full practice and kept on.

I did fail to mention that Ali Karimi played a magnificent game against South Korea in the Asian Cup and for one half he was, what is the right word I am looking for, awesome against Germany. In that game against Germany, he passed, he crossed, he dribbled and he was a star.

For those of us who have taken off the pessimistic glasses and are following what Karimi does these days, we are amazed by his professionalism and dedication.

Someone else is actually happy with Karimi’s performance. That person is the head coach of Bayern Munich. But as the saying goes, coaches don’t count.

The Kicker Editor was quoted saying that he bets Karimi would be shipped back home by this winter. Later he denied saying that.

Well, here I am challenging the Kicker Editor with that bet.

I am betting on Ali Karimi, the same mature and dedicated Karimi of the last month. Never, so much attention has been given and pressure has been placed on an Iranian player abroad. Not on Daei, not on Hashemian, not on Rezai and not even on Kia.

Ali Karimi simply can not change his style of play. There are hundreds of other talented players that Bayern could have signed and invested in. They invested in Karimi because of his unique style and ball handing skills. Karimi will not be asked to be a “Mahdavi Kia” or a “Hashemian.” He simply needs to work hard, very hard, to be Karimi.

Karimi has an entire nation rooting for him.

Somehow I also believe every lazy, lackluster and underachiever person who has heard about Karimi’s story is also rooting for him. Well, almost every one of them but perhaps not the Kicker’s editor!