World Cup: Meet Alireza, Eloy Room - unlikely heroes who raised the bar

Whoever said the 48-team FIFA World Cup would produce too many one-sided matches has been largely off the mark so far. Yes, there has been the occasional thrashing — Germany's 7-1 demolition of Curacao, for instance — but a clutch of goalkeepers have stood like rocks between the posts, keeping their nations' campaigns alive against the odds.

If Vozinha set the trend early on, it was Curacao's Eloy Room and Iran's towering Alireza Beiranvand who stole the spotlight over the weekend with performances bordering on the superhuman. Consider this: Room made 15 saves — a World Cup record for a single match in regulation time — to hold Ecuador scoreless, while Beiranvand kept a star-studded, world No. 9 Belgium at bay with seven outstanding saves in another goalless draw.

Both left the pitch with Player of the Match awards, just like Vozinha, but not before sparking curiosity about their stories. At this World Cup, Iran's struggle to prepare and compete under far-from-ideal conditions has frequently made headlines. Yet those challenges have done little to deter Alireza Beiranvand, the former runaway child who grew up in abject poverty in a Kurdish Lak family amid the rugged hills of Lorestan.

Realising that his father would never allow him to pursue a sport that was considered a luxury for their family, a teenage Alireza borrowed some money, ran away from home and boarded a bus to Tehran. Life in the capital was far from easy. With nowhere to stay and little money to survive on, he took up odd jobs — sweeping streets, scrubbing tyres at a car wash and preparing dough at a late-night pizza shop — as he chased his dream of becoming a professional footballer.

When Beiranvand arrived in the Iranian capital, he had neither a bed nor a room, nor even an acquaintance to fall back on. For months, he slept on the streets outside local football clubs, figuring that if he was going to freeze, he might as well do it close to the grass. To afford basic meals, he swept streets, scrubbed tyres at a car wash, worked on assembly lines in a dressmaking factory and even prepared dough at a late-night pizza shop.

The logistics for the Iran team have been brutal in the US as they have been regularly been forced into exhausting travel windows, sometimes only receiving clearance to enter the United States roughly 24 hours before the referee blows the opening whistle. However, the Team Melli still durvived the ordeal with two draws so far and it would be a remarkable feat if they eventually make it to Round of 32.

A day earlier, Room, the oldest player in Curacao’s squad at 37, withstood relentless Ecuadorean pressure to help his team earn a second draw on the trot and two points from as many games so far. United States’ Tim Howard is the only shot-stopper to have produced more stops in a single World Cup match, 16 in an extra-time defeat by Belgium in the last 16 at the finals in 2014.

‘’I was not thinking about that during the game,’’ Room said later, though joking that he was annoyed he was not able to reach Howard’s mark. Incidentally, it’s not the first time he has come up with an effort like that as back in 2019, Room made more than a dozen saves in his country’s first Gold Cup win against Honduras. Shining on the biggest stage, however, marked an additional landmark for the nation of about 156,000 people - and a personal accomplishment.

In an interview with FIFA.com, the Netherlands-born Room said earlier this year that the reason he decided to play for Curacao was dreaming as a little kid to make it to the World Cup with the country. He became eligible to represent Curacao through his father and said he used to visit the country on vacation in his youth. Patrick Kluivert contacted him to join the team in 2015 when the former Netherlands international managed the side.

Born near the German border, the six-feet-three Room plays for Miami FC in the USL Championship after spending most of his career at Dutch club Vitesse. He has also played for Columbus Crew in the MLS and PSV Eindhoven in the Eredivisie.

Social media quickly reflected the impact of his performance with Room’s Instagram account jumping to around 700,000 followers from fewer than 100,000 before the game - a boom similar to what happened to Cape Verde’s Vozinha.