On the whole kidnapper-wannabees don't usually get much sympathy here at Planet Football but you'd want to have a cold heart not to feel a little sorry for the pair of Iranians who tried to kidnap their country's top football star, Ali Daei, last week - and failed to a miserable and ever so slightly embarrassing extent.

Their plan: wait for Daei to return home from training (they'd already monitored his movements and were confident they knew from which direction he would come), crash into his car, ask him for a lift to the hospital and then take him hostage at gunpoint. Perfect? No. Daei drove off in a, well, the other direction leaving our pals stuck on the wrong side of a dual carriageway. They then used their stolen mobile phone to ring a mate to complain about their bad luck . . . but the police, who had been tracing their calls, heard the conversation, tracked them down and voila, they're in jail. The imperfect crime, eh?