Carlos Queiroz. Four years ago when I was looking for stories about each team that had qualified for Brazil '14, Iran was one of my first ones, if not my first.
Querioz, the coach, was in the news because he threatened to resign because of the lack of funds for his team and the lack of organization in the Iranian Federation. There were no friendlies planned, a training camp in South Africa had to be cancelled because only 11 players were available and the players were told they could not swap shirts in Brazil because there weren't enough for all their matches. Querioz seemed to be at his wit's end and not looking like he would stick around for much longer.
Now here he is leading Iran to Russia after a very impressive qualifying campaign. They were the second team to qualify after Brazil.And Queiroz is still there and quite the hero. What didn't work for Portugal and Real Madrid is working like a charm for Iran.
Querioz is still complaining that the federation aren't doing enough to plan for the future, and that training camps and friendlies are hard to come by. But when you have just led your team to consecutive World Cups for the first time in their history I think you are allowed to act like you know what you are talking about. The next challenge is for Iran to make it past the first round for the first time.
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