Katayoun “Kat” Khosrowyar is studying for a Masters degree in global affairs at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

The purpose, she tells Women’s Soccer Coaching, is to “put all my skills, abilities and experience under one umbrella”. It would need to be a sizeable umbrella.

Growing up in Oklahoma, with Iranian heritage, Kat became an avid soccer player, describing the first time she touched the ball as “love at first sight”.

On a family holiday to Iran in 2005, Kat was spotted playing futsal by Shahrzad Mozafar, coach of the country’s national futsal team.

Mozafar asked Kat to be part of the new project she was working on – the first Iranian women’s national soccer team since the 1979 revolution.