Canadian-Iranian lives out dream -- in soccer stadium
By NEIL DAVIDSON
Canadian Press
Friday, January 22, 1999
Somewhere in Austria, in the bowels of a soccer stadium, lives Canadian
Tom Rajabzadeh.
That's where he trains. That's where he dreams. And that's where he
sleeps.
On a wing and a prayer -- and a lot of tuna because he can't afford
much more -- Rajabzadeh (pronounced Rah-jar-ZAH-day) flew to Europe four
months ago in search of a team that might want him.
He landed in Austria, eventually finding a sympathetic club in SC Eisenstadt,
languishing in the cellar of the Austrian Third Division.
"It wasn't really planned to come from Eisenstadt. It just happened,"
Rajabzadeh said Thursday from Austria. "It's actually quite a long
story."
It all started 22 years ago in Tehran where he grew up kicking a soccer
ball like most Iranian kids.
But with the country ravaged by war, Rajabzadeh's family left Iran when
Rajabzadeh was around eight years old. It was a journey that was to take
Tom Rajabzadeh to Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Austria before Canada
beckoned.
It was in Austria that the soccer became more important. There were
plenty of youth teams in the area and soon he was playing organized soccer.
But when he came to Canada at the age of 15, he found a soccer wasteland.
His high school in Richmond Hill, Ont., just north of Toronto, didn't even
have a team. So he helped organize one.
"A very good player," said Mark Girdler, who coached Rajabzadeh
on the Richmond Hill basketball team. "He's a fantastic guy to coach.
Works very hard and is very team-oriented.
"Soccer is his passion and he works hardest at that."
After high school, Rajabzadeh got a soccer scholarship at the University
of Maine at Machias but left midway through the season after his coach
left and he became unhappy with the team. He couldn't kick soccer, however.
"It was becoming a sickness for me," he admitted. "I
had to play. You know what I'm saying?
"There'd be times when I don't perform to the best of my abilities
and I wouldn't be able to sleep. I'd just get up and go for a run or something
at three in the morning.
"I was just going mad. So I said I have to move on. I've got to
go. If I don't this now, 10 years later it's just going to come back and
haunt me and I'm going to say why didn't I try, why didn't I do it?"
Rajabzadeh got a summer job in 1997 helping with a Major League Soccer
camp in Connecticut that catered to kids. He made contact with a few coaches,
but nothing came from it. "Every door I tried to open, there was
another big wall in front of it. I couldn't go anywhere."
So Rajabzadeh came home and played for a number of teams in Ontario,
including Markham in the Ontario Soccer League, and tried out for the Toronto
Lynx of the A-League.
"The coach liked me," he said. "He said I could definitely
play but he was looking for somebody that could carry the team, somebody
with a bigger name who could bring fans to the stadium.
"I don't have a name."
Lynx coach Peter Pinizzotto doesn't even remember him. j "If he
was really that good, we would have kept him around."
Rajabzadeh turned to the Internet, trying to contact as many soccer
clubs as he could.
"I started e-mailing everybody. Wherever I found a soccer page,
a web site on soccer, I started writing. I was just trying to get some
information, to get a trial."
He offered to fly at his own expense, asking only for a room and food
while he showed his skills. His break came when an Austrian university
student who ran his own soccer web page offered to help.
"He was really feeling my pain. He said he could help."
Using the money he earned as a bus boy for a local restaurant, Rajabzadeh
bought a ticket to Austria.
Rajabzadeh gave himself a month and checked into a cheap hotel. His
new Austrian friend took him to a number of teams but Rajabzadeh was usually
told they already had their quote of two foreign players.
"They didn't even give me a chance to play."
He noticed a local team, Eisenstadt, was stuck in the Third Division
basement. So he went to visit. Bingo. Sort of.
"They were kind enough to give me a room in the stadium,"
he said, pausing. "It's a place where I can sleep."
Pressed on the matter, Rajabzadeh says the room has no heating and he
tries to keep his teammates from finding out that he lives there.
He's working out with the club's under-23 team and hopes to make it
to the first team "once I prove myself."
He may actually start getting paid -- he reckons the rookie salary's
about $100 a month -- when the second half of the season starts.
"I don't have money left, I'm quite embarrassed to say this but
if this is the way I can get noticed, so be it."
He has already notched a goal and assist for the first team in exhibition
play and a goal for the second team.
The Canadian Soccer Association knows about Rajabzadeh, confirming they
have given the Austrian federation the international transfer certificate
he needs to play.
Just getting that is a step forward for Rajabzadeh.
"Eisenstadt, for me, is just to prove things," he explained.
"They look at me and they say 'You say you're from Canada. Oh ice
hockey, You play for the Leafs or the Oilers or something.'
"But I was born in Iran, I used to eat and sleep soccer when I'm
young. I'm not disrepecting hockey players but I'm not a hockey player."
Rajabzadeh admits he is still out on a limb in Austria. And he says
his family isn't thrilled about his recent decisions.
His brother-in-law, Fariborz Elmi, says the family would rather he had
stayed at home.
"He's a good player but I think if you want to go to the big teams,
you've got to have connections," he said from Toronto. Rajabzadeh
won't be deterred, however.
"My father always told me 'Be brave, be courageous. Go ahead, do
it.'
"When I told him Dad, 'I'm going to be brave, I'm going to be courageous,
I'm just going to do it,' he said 'Boy, are you out of your mind?'
"But I had to do it. If I was to make that decision again, I would
do it again and again, 100 times. I'm happy with the decision I make.
"That's OK, I eat tuna fish every day. That's fine. But my day
will come."
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