Iran's Forgotten Generation

[KC McElroy]

I agree on few names, such as Zendeh Yaad Sirous, Abedzadeh, Kermani, Namjoo, Zarincheh from late 80s generation as well as Panjali, Naser MohammadKhani, Changiz, Derakhshan, Shahroukh Bayani, and few others from between 80 to 88 generation, but i don't think Garousi was that special player, neither was Karim Bavi(other than amazing ability to score goals off the header, probably as good as Daei or even better), his overall ground game was close to zero, can't recall if he ever scored any goal in TM on the ground(scored few in Persepolis though).
Overall yes, they were the typical Nasl-e-Sokhte, at least the ones before revolution went once to World Cup, the 80 to 90 generation were wasted because of the war.
What is amazing is despite war and lots of issues going on in the country, we continued to produce some great talents, and our 90 up to 94 teams depended a lot to the generation between 80 to 90. The core of 90 team was mainly players discovered by Marhoum Dehdari, this guy was genius in level of finding talents, he found Abbas Sarkhaab from Minab, Zarincheh from second division Tehran league team such as Jandarmeri, Abedzadeh from Taam Esfehan, Marfavi from Mahshahr, Bavi from Ahvaz, Nader Mohammadkhani from Vahdat, Moharrami from Nirou Zamini and the list goes on and on. That was back to the time when majority of TM players were coming from big clubs. He actually started doing this before Asian Cup 1988 when lots of stars signed a letter and left the team due to the conflict with the coach, so his hands were tight in level of players at some point.
One player you forgot to mention is Samad Marfavi, very underrated forward imo.

Garousi never got enough of a chance to shine. He was lethal in the World Cup qualifiers and not to mention in club competitions. He was unlucky that Parvin became coach and suddenly decided to replace everyone with a Persepolis player, in Garousi's case a very average Abedian.

Bavi scored one goal that I remember with a shot, the equalizer against South Korea in the 1986 Asian Games.

[PersianLegion]

^ Sounds like grandfathers having disagreement over WWII combat stories.

[KC McElroy]

Excellent documentary of our 1988 Asian Championship campaign.

[PersianLegion]

Iranian Maldini was the best defender Iran has ever seen. He was very strong and famous as Bulldozer among Iranian players of his time. He started football from Machine Sazi and went as high as being Tractor Sazi's regular player. He could play both as defender and midfielder. The love of his homeland and family didn't allow him to move to Bundesliga or other major European leagues as many of his teammate used to transfer back in the days. If Ali Daei was our legend in forward position, Ostad was our legend in defense and team spirit.

Ali Akbar Ostad Asadi was discovered by Mohamad Mayeli Kohan and was among 1996 golden generation of Iranian football. He was among few people who could score a goal against our mighty goal keeper Abedzadeh.

[KC McElroy]

It's astonishing how you never run out of bimazeh comments.

[PersianLegion]

It's astonishing how you never run out of bimazeh comments.

You set a new record. Someone like TheWheels agreed with you. That is impressive.

Yekam ham maze bad nist chashnie ostad ramin.

[Sly]

Great thread, presenting some top players of the past to younger members!

These players could have easily played in top 4 European leagues if it wasn't because of the war and lots of internal problems that came with it!

As Iran_19 mentions, players like, Changiz, Panjali, Mohammadkhani, Derakhshan, etc. are other top players you should have included in your list!

[KC McElroy]

Great thread, presenting some top players of the past to younger members!
These players could have easily played in top 4 European leagues if it wasn't because of the war and lots of internal problems that came with it!
As Iran_19 mentions, players like, Changiz, Panjali, Mohammadkhani, Derakhshan, etc. are other top players you should have included in your list!

Those players are more or less from the previous generation. Although some of them eventually played with the players I mentioned in TM but that was pretty much due to them being Persepolisi and Parvin becoming TM coach. Under Parvin's reign at one point one could make an entire roster of starters and subs strictly from red players that Parvin had fielded for TM: Soltani, Ghilich, Nader Mohammadkhani, Morteza Fonoonizadeh, Moharrami, Panjali, Khakpour, Ansarifar, Ashoori, Derakhshan, Kermani Moghaddam, Mir Ahmadian, Abedian, Naser Mohammadkhani, Pious, Bavi....

[Sly]

Those players are more or less from the previous generation. Although some of them eventually played with the players I mentioned in TM but that was pretty much due to them being Persepolisi and Parvin becoming TM coach. Under Parvin's reign at one point one could make an entire roster of starters and subs strictly from red players that Parvin had fielded for TM: Soltani, Ghilich, Nader Mohammadkhani, Morteza Fonoonizadeh, Moharrami, Panjali, Khakpour, Ansarifar, Ashoori, Derakhshan, Kermani Moghaddam, Mir Ahmadian, Abedian, Naser Mohammadkhani, Pious, Bavi....

True but even the players I mentioned were the victims of the war. They could have easily reached places if the state of the country was ok. Changiz for example was an outstanding player. I could have easily seen him play for top European leagues if.....

[KC McElroy]

True but even the players I mentioned were the victims of the war. They could have easily reached places if the state of the country was ok. Changiz for example was an outstanding player. I could have easily seen him play for top European leagues if.....

Yes they were good also but the second generation of players during the war were a few notches higher. Who did we have from that first generation who could match Moharrami? Or Pious? We still haven't been able to reproduce players of their quality.
On a side note I should have included Mehdi Abtahi on the list.

[Iran_19]

Garousi never got enough of a chance to shine. He was lethal in the World Cup qualifiers and not to mention in club competitions. He was unlucky that Parvin became coach and suddenly decided to replace everyone with a Persepolis player, in Garousi's case a very average Abedian.
Bavi scored one goal that I remember with a shot, the equalizer against South Korea in the 1986 Asian Games.

He had a nice touch for goals but he was physically very weak. He was a good complementary forward but was not kind of forward to play lonely, target role. I liked Samad Marfavi overall game more than him.

[KC McElroy]

He had a nice touch for goals but he was physically very weak. He was a good complementary forward but was not kind of forward to play lonely, target role. I liked Samad Marfavi overall game more than him.

Marfavi had one big game (against Algeria in Tehran) and for the rest he hardly rose to the occasion. That's not to say he wasn't good, he certainly was. He just was too hot and cold and by the time he became consistently hot there were younger forwards ready to replace him. His goals were few and far in between. After being part of the team for all of 1988, I remember a picture and caption of him playing a friendly against Japan in early 1989 in a 2-2 tie which summed up his performance very accurately: نقش مرفاوی علی**رغم تلاشش معلوم نیست چیست

[teammelli91]

A very informative post for the younger generation of Persian football fans.

Thanks KC jan!

[KC McElroy]

A very informative post for the younger generation of Persian football fans.

Thanks KC jan!

All of my posts are very informative for all generations.

[KC McElroy]

Half of the games from our 1990 World Cup campaign. I wish I could have found footage of our away game against Thailand which showed Ghayeghran's thunderous shot from distance for our second goal.