Iran Press- Iran news/ Ali Daei, has received 59 percent of votes in an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) online poll to become best striker in the history of AFC Asian Cup.
"No player in the history of football has scored more international goals than Ali Daei’s 109 for Islamic Republic of Iran", AFC website reported, adding that "eight of those strikes came at the 1996 AFC Asian Cup, earning him the top scorer award; Daei added three more in Lebanon 2000 and two more in China four years later to become the competition’s all-time top goal scorer."
One-hundred days from the start of AFC Asian Cup 2019 on 5 January in the UAE, the AFC website announced last week that it was conducting a poll for its users to choose the best team in the history of the games.
It began by providing a list of top nine names who had played in the AFC matches and asked its users to vote for the top two best strikers in its history to play in its selected team.
Apart from Ali Daei, other names on the list included Lee Dong-gook from S Korea, Naohiro Takahara from Japan, Younis Mahmoud from Iraq, Yasser Al-Qahtani from Saudi Arabia, Ali Mabkhout from the UAE, Jasem Al-Huwaidi from Kuwait, Tim Cahill from Australia, and Alexander Ginrich from Uzbekistan. The main rivalry was between Ali Daei and Yasser Al-Qahtani in which Daei from Iran succeeded to win the title.
The participants in the poll numbered 1,301,412, of which 767,438 or 59 percent voted for Ali Daei. Yasser Al-Qahtani came second with 35 percent of the votes, and Younis Mahmoud from Iraq with 4 percent was in third place. According AFC website, this 8-days poll has ended at 03/10/2018, 15:30:00.
Ali Daei (born 21 March 1969), former footballer and current coach, manages Persian Gulf Pro League club Saipa and is the owner and CEO of Daei Sport.
He was a captain of the Iran national football team, having played as a striker for clubs such as Bayern Munich and Hertha BSC, and is the world's all-time leading goalscorer in men's international matches.
From June 2007 until 2013, Daei was a member of the FIFA Football Committee. In 2001, Daei was appointed as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
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