Persepolis FC: A look At the Club's History

Supporting a football team means many different things to different people. For some, it's simply about going to the games, holding a season ticket, and standing on the sidelines cheering their team to victory and commiserating with the losses. Other people enjoy betting on them to win and watching them on the television. This opens a whole new world of being able to support teams you physically couldn't travel to see, and it helps if you can learn a little bit about their history to decide who you're going to put your money on. In this review, we look at Persepolis FC and delve into the background and history.

Iranian Champions

Persepolis is one of the biggest teams in the Iranian championships and has won the league for 13 seasons. They are a force to be reckoned with and feature highly in Asian football. The club took its name from the Persian Empire's capital, which is also a historical landmark of Iran Persepolis. Within the club emblem, you will see elements of how they gained their name. The team was formed in 1963 by Ali Abdo, who was a championship boxer. Their home ground is the Azadi Stadium in Tehran. It took them eight years after they were formed to begin the now well-known winning form. The club managed to top the Iranian league in 1971, and then things went a bit quiet until the 1990s, which is when things really started to heat up. They became a force to be reckoned with, and no one seemed to be able to beat them. Winning the 1995-96 season, they knocked back all competition hanging onto the title right through to the 2000-01 season.

A Winning Streak

Their trophy cabinet was starting to sag under the weight of all the cups they were winning. In the 1990-91 season, they won the Hazfi cup alongside winning the league and the cup again in 1998-99, quite the double. In 2001 the Persian Gulf pro league, or the Iranian pro league as it was first called, was formed. Again, Persepolis managed to win their 8th league title and become the first-ever team to hold this Iranian pro league championship spot. In order to take the silverware, they beat Esteghlal, who were their nearest rivals and created the fabled Tehran Derby, which has become the most significant Derby in Asia. They have taken the pro league title 6 times, and for the last four years, it has exclusively belonged to the club as they continue a strong defence and retain their win that started in the 2016 to 2017 season. From 2018 to 2019, they pulled another double there certainly doesn't seem to be any way of stopping this powerful squad.

The Asia Cup

It is fair to say that the Asian club competitions have presented them with more challenges, they won the title in 1990 to 91, beating Bahrain, but after that, they consistently ended up in 3rd place for five seasons, starting in 1996 and ending in 2001. During that time, the championship became rebranded as the AFC Champions League. For some reason, between 2004 and 2018, they failed to qualify for Asian competitions because of financial issues within the club that dramatically hampered the performance on the pitch. In 2009 they got their buy-in thanks to the Iranian pro league win, which took place in the 96th minute with 100,000 fans cheering them on. However, it wasn't a particularly triumphant return, and they found themselves eliminated from the group stages, also known as round 13. In 2015 a new manager was appointed, Branko Ivankovic, and he seemed to have the magic touch. The former Croatian player turned manager managed to take them to a hat trick of titles within the league championships and right into the semi-finals of the new AFC Champions League. This was in 2017, and in 2018 they reached the final but did not win the match.

The Current Situation

Now the team is managed by a former player Iranian Yahya Golmohammadi, who spent most of his career playing with the team. In 2012 he was offered the position of assistant manager. Still, there was some tension between coach Manuel Jose and the club president, which meant he ended up shouldering more responsibility than initially accepted. He didn't stay for very long at this stage, instead moving on to become manager of Naft Tehran, and then Zob Ahan but returned eventually as head coach when Gabriel Calderon left. Their current performance remains strong and this season they have only lost one game. It is currently looking probable that they will retain the league title for a fifth consecutive time. They have a strong group of players, many of whom are local and have proven their worth several times. This year's AFC Champions League will be veteran defender 39-year-old Hosseini that remains in the spotlight. A former international, he hung up his globe-trotting boots in 2018 after 115 appearances and now plays domestic football only. He is considered something of a star player, who first left the club in 2014 to play for Qatar but returned in 2016. He has played a prominent role in their recent successes, and it will be a devastating blow for the side when he finally retires. They are certainly a fascinating team, and it is not surprising they receive much international interest from supporters worldwide.