Poya Asbaghi: Who is the Sweden Under-21s coach and current Barnsley managerial target?

Poya Asbaghi is the current frontrunner to be appointed permanently at Oakwell. The 36-year-old has been on the Reds' radar before and was interviewed for the position prior to Gerhard Struber's arrival in November 2019.

The Iran-born coach is currently in charge of Sweden's Under-21s side and has an impressive amount of coaching experience to his name.

Between 2014 and 2015 he was assistant coach at Dalkurd FF, who currently play in the Swedish third tier. He become manager in 2016 before leaving in 2017. In the same year, he spent time in charge at Gefle IF.

In 2018, Asbaghi was named manager of Swedish Allsvenskan - the country's top tier - side IFK Göteborg. After guiding the club to an 11th-place finish in the 16-team division in 2018 and a seventh-placed finish the following year, his contract at the club was extended to 2022.

In 2019, he also earned Göteborg a spot in the second qualifying round of the Europa League.

He was also nominated manager of the year in Allsvenskan before being approached by Barnsley in the autumn prior to Struber's appointment.

In 2020, he won the Swedish Cup with Göteborg with a 2-1 win after extra time in the final against Malmo FF.

However, in September of 2020 he was sacked after two wins and eleven draws in 18 league games.

In November last year he was appointed manager of Sweden Under-21s until the summer of 2023.

Asbaghi and his family fled Iran when he was younger. He grew up in Uppsala which is Sweden's fourth-largest city.

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