GOALKEEPERS are not temperamentally aggressive; their job is to defend. So it must have surprised many people when Nasser Hejazi’s public comments began to depart from his customary discussion of sporting triumphs and disappointments, and turned instead to politics. Not that he was combative. The defender in him kept his remarks to the anodyne, or at least to what most people in most places would regard as the anodyne. In Iran, however, any criticism of the government carries risks, even for a national hero.
