One of the best articles to describe how good Hejazi was ,in a class of his own . I remember the game with Stoke city and how much I wanted to be there .
All these goalies were my heroes , from yashin to banks to Aziz Asli ! or Aziz Asl e Kaari who was a real character as described in this article ,the crowd loved him ,I was a bit too young to remember much of him but he was a huge star in those days and he was every one's hero , but Hejazi a young skinny good looking lad came and took his spot with a storm ,Aziz didn't go out quietly but Hejazi was so good that Aziz Asli with all his might faded away and was not missed in goal at all .
After North Korea game in Pyongyang everyone was convinced that Iran had a diamond in goal ,shame that it took so long and had to come after his death to read such nice articles about him such as this one and the one in the FIFA site and so on .
One aspect that this article didn't give enough attention perhaps was his tremendous agility and athleticism , he was so quick on his feet and stepping around to put himself on an advantageous position and his ability to quickly change direction and act like a kind of spider man .
I have been lucky enough to see some of his tremendous saves ,the ones like described in this article that raise you from your seat to think its a goal only for his hands to reach and catch or deflect the ball ,his incredible speed was a phenomenon .
it would be nice if his team mates and goalies of those days give their accounts of him and what I like to know is was he really a natural and was born with those skills and how much coaches like Rykoff could teach him on goalkeeping aspects .
we know he used to play basketball and that helps a lot with catching high balls and be dominant in the penalty box but it takes a lot more than that to be a top draw goalie as it was rightly mentioned in that article .