December 31, 2021
Iranian-American soccer coach Afshin Ghotbi has been fired by the Chinese team Cangzhou Mighty Lions after he managed only two wins in the 14 games so far this season.
Ghotbi, 57, who was born in Shiraz but reared in the US after his divorced Iranian father married an American and moved there, has had a long and checkered career as a coach all around the world, including a period as coach of Iran’s national team.
After coaching in the US and South Korea (his wife’s homeland), he was hired to take over the Iranian club team Persepolis and led it to first place in his first season. That resulted in his being hired to coach the national team, where his record of 16 wins, six draws and six losses was good—but the public turned on him when the team lost in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Asian Cup.
He then coached club teams in Japan and Thailand without notable success. In 2016, he was hired by a Chinese team, now named the Cangzhou Mighty Lions. In his first season, the team finished dead last in the standings and was relegated to second level league. In his second season, he led the team to a third-place finish, just shy of the second-place needed to be elevated back into the senior league.
He was then dropped and he returned to Iran to coach Foolad in Ahvaz for one season. The team finished unimpressively in eighth.
Ghotbi then returned to the Cangzhou Mighty Lions in 2019, where he led the team to second place in the second division, meaning it was elevated to the first division. In 2010, however, the Mighty Lions under Ghotbi finished in last place and would have been relegated but for the fact that another top division team was dissolved, so the Mighty Lions got to stay in the first division.
As of August, with 14 of the season’s games played, the Mighty Lions had a miserable record of two wins, four draws and eight losses and were in next to last place. The team had scored only 13 goals and had 23 scored against it. The owners sacked Ghotbi September 6, and he is now looking for a new job.