San Marino isn't too far ahead of Maldives and Iran wasn't the only country who played the likes of Maldives, every other Asian team had the same opportunities at some point
Most of Daei's goals were against top-tire Asian teams. For example, he scored four goals against South Korea in just one match, plus a half a dozen goals against Japan during his NT career. And your own Arab brethren regularly play against the same opponents in AFC that Daei played against, yet the most prolific Arab striker in history of the game, is Sami Al-Jaber who scored 44 goals in 166 matches, which is nothing compared to King Ali Daei's 109 goals in 149 matches. Daei also holds the record for most goals scored in the history of FIFA World Cup qualifying, with 35 goals.
In terms of years, Germany's record looked unbeatable. that's almost half a century withourt losing a WCQer. Of course, they missed out in 1950. they played much fewer matches in the early years. I just do not think anyone can stay 50 years unbeaten in this modern era.
I said that Germany has made the quarterfinals or better of 15 World Cups in a row. Brazil didn't make the quarterfinals in 1966 or 1990. I think these are the current streaks of making the quarterfinals. Germany-15 Brazil-5 Argentina-2 Holland-1 Uruguay-1 Ghana-1 Spain-1 Paraguay-1
gerd müllers 11 game goalscoring streak wcq and wc 1970 combinated and müllers perfect 12 game goal/assist streak same competitions..... wcq. austria-germany 0:2...1 goal cyprius-germany 0:1...1 goal scotland-germany 1:1...1 goal germany-austria 1:0....1 goal germany-cyprius 12:0...4 goals germany-scotland 3:2....1 goal wc. marocco-germany 1:2...1 goal germany-bulgaria 5:2...3 goals peru-germany 1:3...3 goals germany-england 3:2...1 goal italy-germany 4:3...2 goals germany-uruquay 1:0....1 assist
Top 50 Attendance in Brasil. http://www.flamengo.com.br/flapedia/Maiores_p%C3%BAblicos_do_futebol_brasileiro
I think that Vitālijs Astafjevs of Latvia might have an outside chance of reaching 180 or more caps (as of October 2010, he has made 165 appearances for his national side and he is currently the captain of the team). I don't think that the amazing goals to games career ratios (when it comes to national teams) of Gerd Müller (62 caps/68 goals) and Just Fontaine (21 appearances/30 goals) will ever be bettered (though this only applies to European/UEFA international footballers). Fontaine's 13 goals in a single World Cup also seem very unlikely to ever be equalled or surpassed.
Karim Bagheri is the highest-scoring defensive player in the history of the game, with 50 goals in 87 matches. Video of all his international goals which were mostly headers and long-range shots [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMwa1NmRBKQ"]YouTube - Karim Bagheri[/ame]
