Taking a Byte Out of Soccer
SEOUL — When Afshin Ghotbi arrived in the United States a quarter-century ago, he had with him something that has carried him all the way to the semifinals of the World Cup.
It's called a love of the game, a passion for soccer that he acquired on the streets and playgrounds of his native Tehran.
Ghotbi was 13 when his family moved to California, and in all the years since, he has tried to instill that same love of soccer in youngsters in the U.S., first by playing alongside them and later by coaching them.
Ghotbi discovered and developed U.S. World Cup midfielder John O'Brien, now starting for Dutch powerhouse Ajax Amsterdam. Ghotbi discovered and developed U.S. Olympic team midfielder Peter Vagenas, now playing for the Galaxy.
Both came to the fore at the American Global Soccer School that Ghotbi founded in 1988 and is now run for him by former Galaxy defender Dan Calichman.
There have been other success stories, many of them, but none that strains the imagination as much as the story Ghotbi is helping to write here.
At 38, he has stumbled upon something that could revolutionize soccer worldwide. It's all stored in the laptop computer that almost never leaves his side.
That computer, along with the software within, has plucked Ghotbi out of his home in Rancho Santa Margarita and deposited him on the bench of one of the most successful teams in Korea/Japan '02.
Instead of watching the World Cup on television, the former Glendale High and UCLA player is right here in the thick of it, helping Coach Guus Hiddink make the decisions that have carried South Korea to the final four.
Ghotbi is one of 10 members of South Korea's technical staff, an assistant coach in fact if not in name. He is the team's "match analyst," a position new to soccer but likely to become increasingly prevalent.
While Ahn Jung-Hwan has been scoring goals, while Hong Myung-Bo has been making tackles and while Lee Woon-Jae has been producing saves--in short, while South Korea has been disposing of such European "powers" as Poland and Portugal, Italy and Spain--Ghotbi has kept his hard drive humming and clicking quietly in the background, providing the technological underpinning to Hiddink's Korean miracle.
Three things put Ghotbi in this position: a thorough knowledge of soccer, an engineering degree from UCLA and the expertise to understand and use a complicated but intriguing computer program.
