Ali Daei pictured above during the match against Mexico at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
It was his 149th Cap for Iran and his final game.
IRAN 1:3 MEXICO (1:1) Golmohammadi (36). (11.06.06, Nuremburg - 41,000)
Ebrahim Mirzapour, Yahya Golmohammadi, Rahman Rezaei, Hossein Kaabi, Mohammad Nosrati (Arash Borhani 81),
Mehdi Mahdavikia, Javad Nekounam, Ali Karimi (Mehrzad Madanchi 62), Andranik Teymourian, Vahid Hashemian,
Ali Daei (c)
.
IRAN 1:1 ANGOLA (0:0) Bakhtiarizadeh (76). (21.06.06, Leipzig - 38, 000)
Ebrahim Mirzapour, Sohrab Bakhtiarizadeh, Rahman Rezaei, Hossein Kaabi (Arash Borhani 67),
Mohammad Nosrati (Masoud Shojaei 13), Mehdi Mahdavikia, Ferydoon Zandi, Andranik Teymourian,
Vahid Hashemian (Rasoul Khatibi 39), Mehrzad Madanchi, Ali Daei (c).
International career.
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Ali Daei was called up to join Team Melli on 6 June 1993 in an ECO Cup
tournament held in Tehran, where he made his debut for Iran against
Pakistan. He was named the
top scorer of the final Asian round of 1994 FIFA World Cup
qualifications with 4 goals in 5 matches.
Daei was named the world's
top scorer in official international competitions by the International
Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), having scored 20
goals in competitive matches for Iran in 1996, including his famous 4
goal haul against South Korea in Asian Cup 1996. By the end of the 1996
Asian Cup, he had scored 29 goals in 38 appearances for Iran.
In the
1998 World Cup qualifying campaign, he was again on top of the charts,
scoring 9 goals in 17 matches for Iran, reaching his impressive record
of 38 goals in 52 appearances for his country. He is one of the most
prolific strikers in the history of football and is now ranked first in
most goals in international matches. His experience with world-class
football opened the way for other Asian players such as Hidetoshi Nakata
and Mehdi Mahdavikia.
Century of international goals.
Ali
Daei joined the exclusive circle of players with a century of caps. In a
28 November 2003 Asian Cup qualifier against Lebanon, he
scored his 85th international goal, elevating him past Hungarian legend
Ferenc Puskás to top the all-time list of scorers in international
matches.
On 17 November 2004, he scored four goals against Laos in a
World Cup qualifier, giving him 102 goals and making him the first male
player to score 100 goals in international play.
He scored 109 goals in total.
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.