Poya Asbaghi officially joined the Club on Wednesday, but what do you know about our new Head Coach?
Born in Karaj – just outside of the Iranian capital, Tehran – in July 1985, he was only one-year-old when his family fled the country because of political persecution.
Since then, Asbaghi has spent his life in Sweden and began his coaching journey as assistant at Dalkurd FF, a club based in Uppsala, where he grew up with his family.
Formed in 2004, Dalkurd was founded by members of the Kurdish diaspora, who had fled their respective homelands.
In March 2015, the club were due to fly back to Sweden from Barcelona via Düsseldorf, but changed their plans at the last minute as the layover would have been too long. After taking three separate planes and travelling via Munich and Zurich, the team heard the horrifying news that their originally scheduled flight, Germanwings Flight 4U 9525, had crashed into the French Alps, tragically claiming the lives of everyone on board.
During his time with Dalkurd, Asbaghi helped the club win promotion to the second tier of Swedish football for the first time in their history.
He departed Dalkurd midway through the 2017 campaign to take over fellow Superettan outfit Gefle IF, where he successfully steered them to safety by winning 10 of his 21 matches and picking up 34 of their 36 points.
Asbaghi’s achievements in the lower leagues hadn’t gone unnoticed and eventually top flight side and two-time UEFA Cup winners IFK Göteborg came calling in January 2018 ahead of the Allsvenskan season.
An 11th place finish would follow in his first year at the helm in Gothenburg, before guiding the club to seventh spot 12 months later.
However, his biggest achievement during his time with IFK was the Svenska Cup triumph in 2020 as his team overcame fierce rivals Malmö FF 2-1 to win that competition for the eighth time.
Upon departing Göteborg, he took over as Sweden U21 coach in November 2020 and won six of his 10 games in charge – including four during their UEFA European U21 qualifying campaign – and leaves with the young Swedes top of Group F.
Asbaghi now starts the next step of his exciting coaching career at Barnsley Football Club and will take his first training session on Monday 22 November.
