The level of affection wasn't that strange. Stranger was the fact that the man at the centre of maelstrom was an American citizen; worse, for some within the county, an American citizen who had once spied for the Great Satan as a scout for Team USA against Iran at France 98. But now Ghotbi has been rehabilitated, brought in to salvage an almost impossible dream, a fourth World Cup appearance for Team Meli. Standing in his way is an arduous away tie to North Korea tomorrow.
Ghotbi's journey from college soccer to leading one of the world's top pariah states has been a remarkable one. He arrived in the States aged 13, shortly before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, a move that separated him from his mother until he returned home for the first time nearly 30 years later. After earning his coaching stripes in college football, he travelled to the World Cup in France with the US team. It was perhaps his only failure in football so far: Iran famously won 2-1 in a group qualifier which provoked a million people to take to the streets in Tehran to celebrate.
At the next Wold Cup he worked under Guus Hiddink with a South Korea team that stormed to the semi-finals. But it wasn't until 2007 that an opportunity to return to Iran presented itself as coach of Persepolis, one of Iran's biggest teams. By now Ghotbi had acquired something of a mythical status in his homeland. Here was an Iranian coach, by blood, who had top foreign experience. Some called for his appointment as national coach straight away. Thousands thronged the airport when he arrived back in the country of his birth for the first time in three decades.
And yet, for all the public outpourings of love, Ghotbi was eyed with suspicion by the Iranian Football Association, as well as rival managers. Even some coaches and players within his own team voiced critical opinions in public. His track record couldn't be faulted, but his passport could. In the deeply political world of Iranian football, his citizenship still proved something of a barrier.
The Iranian FA has long been blighted by infighting and internal political intrigue. But it was the then newly elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took that dynamic to a new level. While the 1998 victory over the Americans saw politicians jump on the bandwagon, it wasn't until Ahmadinejad began attaching himself to the team, in the run up to the 2006 World Cup, in an attempt to consolidate his popularity at home, that political influence became far more explicit.
The president took an active interest in the team's affairs, visiting training and meeting the players to impart his wisdom. When he met then captain, Ali Daei, he stressed the need for a strong team and urged him to show the world another face of Iran abroad. While domestically he had hoped for a 'rally-around-the-flag' effect, abroad it only went to taint the Iranian team with Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitism. Politicians across Europe urged Fifa to throw Iran out of the competition. At the tournament Jewish groups organised protests at every city that hosted an Iran game.
German politicians urged the authorities to arrest the Iran president if he arrived for a game, as he had breached the country's holocaust denial laws. The team, which represented a golden generation of players and the country's best hope of reaching the second round, left winless and in turmoil. Branko Ivankovic, the long standing Croatian coach, left almost immediately, while back in Iran the head of the Iranian FA was removed from his position, allegedly with the consent of Ahmadinejad. The move led to Fifa briefly suspending the Iranian FA for political interference.
It was this interference that many felt led to Ghotbi not getting the job when he applied in 2008, with a league championship under his belt following a dramatic first season at Presepolis. Much to the chagrin of the public - Ghotbi claims that on TV talk shows and newspaper polls, 85% of the public wanted him to take the job. Ali Daei got the nod but it was under his watch that the team has failed in an admittedly tough group containing perennial qualifiers South Korea and Saudi Arabia, and perennial dark horses North Korea. Only the top two qualify automatically.
Desperate times, however, call for desperate measures with the IFA now prepared to hire an American for the top job, albeit on a short-term contract until mid-July. Although a further consideration is the new political environment that both countries find themselves in. President Obama's tentative attempts at détente by asking Iran to "unclench its fist" has at least left the door ajar for soft diplomatic manoeuvres. With George W Bush in power, the thought of an American leading the country's revered national team was unthinkable. Given his previous meddling in the affairs of Iranian football, Ahmadinejad would have almost certainly had some input into Ghotbi's selection. What was unthinkable with Bush is now possible with Obama in the White House.
Still, Ghotbi has been handed something of a poisoned chalice. He has one game to salvage Iran's campaign, in Pyongyang, against a team already exceeding expectations and on the verge of making its second appearance at the finals. A victory is the only result acceptable for Tehran. Lose or draw and his job is over, the naysayers proved correct, his one shot at the national job he craved spent. Win, and the flowers will once more fall at his feet.
