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Despite his goalscoring prowess, the striker never managed to net in international football’s biggest tournament. But he was involved in 1998 group stage match against the United States, widely seen as the “most politically charged” match in World Cup history. Relations between Washington and Tehran had deteriorated in the two decades following the 1979 Islamic revolution, which saw the fall of pro-West Shah, the year-long Iranian hostage crisis, and American support for Saddam Hussein during the Iraq War.
