Mad Football published a ranking of 18 football players in the history of Asian football. The list, based on both national and club performance, placed three Korean football stars in the top three spots.
Interestingly, the names of three Iranian footballers — Ali Daei (9th), Mehdi Mahdavi-Kia (10th), and Javad Nekounam (15th) — appear on the list.
Thirteen out of the eighteen players on the list are from Korea and Japan. Ali Daei holds the record as Iran’s all-time top scorer.
With 109 goals in 148 international matches, Ali Daei was the world’s top scorer in men’s football for more than 15 years before Cristiano Ronaldo finally broke his record. He was named Asian Footballer of the Year in 1999, and played in the 1998 and 2006 World Cups, while also winning the Bundesliga title and reaching the Champions League final with Bayern Munich.
Mehdi Mahdavi-Kia, an iconic Iranian player and Asia’s Footballer of the Year in 2003, had an outstanding career with Hamburg and Persepolis. He earned 110 international caps, appearing in the 1998 and 2006 World Cups. He also helped the national team secure third place in the AFC Asian Cup in 1996 and 2004.
Javad Nekounam is considered one of Iran’s finest footballers. He represented the national team in 149 matches over 15 years, playing in the 2006 and 2014 World Cups. He captained Iran in the latter tournament. As a goal-scoring midfielder, much of his club career was with Pas Tehran, but he also spent seven years — over two separate spells — with CA Osasuna in La Liga, helping the club reach the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 2006–07.
