Few players have managed to create the kind of buzz that Ali Karimi, the talented Iranian midfielder, manages on a regular basis. Michael Church talks to him about his rise to fame and his troubles along the way.

With the influence of football clubs growing from day to day and with the ever-expanding web of scouting picking up players that have yet to hit double digits, the number of good rags-to-riches tales in the sport are becoming fewer and fewer.

How often to you hear of a player who was signed up after being spotted playing on the streets with his friends by the biggest club in the land and, before he knows it, is scoring in the final of a continental championship?

Comic book stuff? Not if you’re Ali Karimi, one of the most outrageously talented individuals to have emerged on the Asian football scene in generations. When he burst onto the scene at the Asian Games in Bangkok at the end of 1998, his name was on the lips of just about every football fan in Asia.

His mesmerising runs and his busy style made him look like the ball was tied to his boot as he surged through defences during Iran’s run to the gold medal, a victory that was secured with the help of a goal by Karimi over Kuwait in the final.

With his talent learned on the concrete streets of Tehran, before he was plucked from the obscurity of the Iranian second division by giants Pirouzi, Karimi looked set to join the growing list of Iranian stars.

“Before I went to Pirouzi I was still playing on the streets with a plastic ball on cement. We didn’t have any fields to play on,” says the 21-year-old. “We had the worst conditions but that’s how we played. I didn’t have any great facilities to learn in. We didn’t have anything.

“I was playing for Fath in the second division when Pirouzi came along, saw me and signed me. I was worried about going at first because they are such a big club. They paid a lot of money for me, US$15,000.”

From virtually nowhere, Karimi had just landed a move to arguably the biggest and best-supported team in Asian club football. Despite it all he remains endearingly modest, the realisation of just how fortunate he has been helping to keep his feet on the ground.

“I feel extra lucky because there is so much talent in Iran but they saw my way of playing, my creativity,” he says. “I tried very hard to show them what I could do in my trials. I can’t say how lucky I have been. So many kids dream about playing at the Azadi Stadium and so I have to make the most of what I have.

“Ever since I was a kid I played in the streets with a tiny ball. Using that over and over again gave me the style I have. But also I have something in me, the talent, the potential. That, with the practice, is helping me get to where I am. Doing that and playing some futsal has helped me.”

Ali Karimi celebrates his arrival in the big time; a goal in the final of the 1998 Asian Games against Kuwait in Bangkok

Karimi, though, has experienced several highs and lows despite his short career. Two months after the joy of success in Bangkok, Karimi was handed a one-year ban from all football domestic and international by the Asian Football Confederation after an incident with a referee at a friendly tournament in Vietnam. Despite several appeals, the confederation stuck to its hard line on abuse of officials and Karimi was sidelined for 12 agonising months.

“I felt very sad about what happened,” he says, looking back to the incident that took place during a game against the Vietnamese in the Dunhill Cup. “It came out of anger and frustration. It happened on the spur of the moment and when I look back, I’m embarrassed by it. I felt like I was dead for a whole year. It’s something that I’m ashamed of. That year of not playing is still showing it’s effects in the way I’ve been playing.”

So how does a player pass a year by when he’s not allowed to play and he’s not working at recovering from a long-term injury? Karimi says he’s using the incident to spur on to bigger and better things in the near future.

“At the beginning I took a holiday and then, after that, I just kept practicing and keeping in shape. But I hated football at the time. I was fed up and there were times when I wanted to hang up my boots. I was frustrated mentally. It was something totally unexpected at that time in my life.

“It’s been very difficult to put it behind me because I was counting the days to the end of the ban so that I could play football again. But the way I worked helped me put it behind me. Now I’m trying my best to make to a club in Europe and also to be a success.”

Those dreams came close to reality at the start of the Italian season when Serie A side Perugia took the 22-year-old on trial. The deal fell through, though as the club that gave Hidetoshi Nakata his big break in European football were not prepared to pay Pirouzi’s US$2 million asking price.

The two weeks spent in the Umbrian region has only served to whet the appetite of Karimi for European football, and specifically Italian.

“I have to go, 100 per cent,” he says. “When I went to Italy I saw so many things that we don’t have in Iran. In Iran the facilities for the clubs are not good but there they have everything, all of the right equipment. Going to Perugia made me realise that if I want to improve I have to go abroad.”

He says the two sides are still talking about resurrecting the deal and if it falls through there is no way he will join the growing number of Iranians playing their trade in the Bundesliga.