Mehdi - The Prince

For a time, Andrea Stramaccioni looked like Italian football’s next coaching prodigy. Four years earlier, Pep Guardiola had set the precedent, taking charge of Barcelona almost as a bold gamble after just one season coaching Barcelona B. His rise helped usher in a new wave of coaches in the early 2010s: young, confident and media-savvy, equally at home in TV studios and in the dressing room.

Stramaccioni was handed the Inter job directly from the Primavera, having just won the NextGen Series, the forerunner to the UEFA Youth League. Things went brilliantly at first, then less so, and his time at the club came to a fairly abrupt end. He went on to coach Udinese, Panathinaikos, Sparta Prague and Esteghlal, an Iranian club. Strama also opened an Instagram account for his new adventure, which ended in a rather unusual way. He left the club while they were top of the table, with unpaid wages and an impossible working environment ultimately leading to his departure. There was no interpreter, for example, and even the showers had no running water. Esteghlal’s fans were inconsolable. They flooded the only post on the coach’s official account, begging him to stay. The post then became a place for fans to exchange opinions about the team’s performances and Iranian football in general. Today, seven years later, it has the most comments of any post in Instagram history, and perhaps on the entire internet. Nearly 10 million comments, almost all from Iranian fans using the post to talk about football and everything else, turning it into something resembling a virtual town square from the early days of the internet.

Iran is a complicated country, but its passion for football is endless. Four players from Iran have played in Serie A. As is so often the case, the pioneer was Luciano Gaucci with his Perugia side, who signed two of them. Forward Samereh was a brief spell, while defender Rezaei also played for Livorno and Messina. Then came Roma’s Azmoun, one of the many local players dubbed the “Messi” of their country, in his case the “Iranian Messi.” Like his counterparts, he left little of a mark. Finally, it was Taremi’s turn. The signs were promising. Inter faced Porto twice in the Champions League round of 16 in the 2022-23 season, and Taremi was one of the standout performers, going toe-to-toe with Acerbi in a physical battle. He impressed many, and his arrival on a free transfer the following summer looked like a great piece of business. He made an immediate impact in preseason, starring from the very first friendly, and featured mainly in the Champions League at the start of the season. After playing a key role in the draw away to Manchester City, he became the hero of the night against Red Star. He provided two assists, one for Arnautovic and one for Lautaro, before scoring his first goal for Inter, a penalty generously handed to him by his teammates. It looked like the beginning of a great run. Instead, that first goal by an Iranian player in Inter history remained one of just three he scored in the Nerazzurri shirt. Taremi did, however, feature in the highlights of Inter vs. Barcelona, one of the greatest matches of all time, providing the assist for Frattesi’s decisive 4-3 goal. His time at Inter may not have gone the way he hoped, but Taremi has still earned his place in the club’s history.