Afshin Ghotbi

Afshin Ghotbi is one of football's great globe-trotters, and his journey from Tehran to UCLA to dugouts across Asia is genuinely inspiring. He was on the South Korean staff during that magical 2002 World Cup run to the semifinals, then went on to coach Iran's national team and clubs in Korea and Japan. I find managers like him fascinating because they have to absorb wildly different football cultures and somehow make them cohere. His stint at Shimizu S-Pulse showed real tactical adaptability. He's a connector of footballing worlds, and that kind of cross-cultural fluency is rarer and more valuable than people realize.

Afshin Ghotbi is an Iranian football manager and former player born on February 8, 1964, in Tehran, Iran. A graduate of UCLA, he built an international coaching career across Asia, serving as head coach of the Iran national team and managing clubs in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere, including Shimizu S-Pulse in Japan's J.League. He was also part of the South Korea coaching staff at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Name (English)

Afshin Ghotbi

Name (Japanese)

アフシン・ゴトビ

Reading

あふしん・ごとび

Born

February 8, 1964 (age 62)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Dragon

Origin

Tehran, Tehran Province, Iran

Occupation

Football player / Football manager

University

University of California, Los Angeles

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%95%E3%82%B7%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B4%E3%83%88%E3%83%93

Tags

• From Tehran Province
• Football player
• Football manager

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.