The 15th Premier League has two newcomers: Ali Daei and Parviz Mazloumi who will appear in FC Saba of Qom and FC Esteqlal reserve seats respectively after being out of the boiling pot of the league for some time.
The first day will be July 31 and August 1 and will last almost for 288 days to reach a finish line in May 13 2016. The league is supposedly the highest possible competition in national scale and will host ambitious as well as run-of-the-mill clubs who may just seek to survive relegation to League 1.
The inauguration match will be played by the champion of the last season FC Sepahan of Isfahan which will host Esteqlal of Khuzestan at home; Sepahan won the championship in a historic night when the real final of the 14th league had no definitive winner; now, it faces a rival which is led by an ex-Sepahan player. Sepahan has introduced little change to its arrangement, and will appear in the new season almost with the same champion team; Moharram Navidkia, Ehsan Hajsafi, Rahman Ahmadi, and young stars such as Mehdi Sharifi contribute to Sepahan’s claim to defend its positon as the champion in this season. Definitely, they will seek a good result in their first match to demonstrate their capabilities and draw line to other rivals.
However, the guest yellow-kit Esteqlal of Khuzestan has changed managing director; Esteqlal defeated FC Mes of Kerman in a survival or relegation play-off, with additional good fortune; if Rah Ahan-Peikan match were announced 3-0, then Esteqlal would be relegated outright to League 1. The Ahvazi blue-kits employed no superstar in the transfer season; instead, it announced free 13 players and signed deal with the same number of new players; it will have a tough day against the champion of the last season.
Abdollah Veisi’s relative knowledge of Sepahan arrangement and tactics and absence of Moharram Navidkia and Leonardo Padovani would provide the guest with a great advantage and a glance at creating the first surprise early in the season.
Daei’s return to Premier League after a year of absence from the boiling pot of the football is a special event of the league; in a dramatic sequence of events, he was replaced by Hamid Derakhshan in the 7th day of 14th season to watch matches almost for 23 weeks from home or stadiums. The private ownership of FC Saba of Qom provides better space for Daei and his men for gaining preparation for the new season; he will have in his side Mehdi Tartar as an aid and preparing mate; Saba has been greatly improved by getting Amir Hossein Sadeqi, Hashem Beikzadeh, Mohammad Qazi, Reza Haqiqi, Hamed Lak, and Qasem Dehnavi. They will be restless to strike a win at home; however, against a rival as Khuzestan’s second representative, now called Esteqlal of Ahvaz (which appropriated the Foulad Novin of Ahvaz to come to Premier League after years) would have its own challenges; Esteqlal of Ahvaz was even relegated to League 2; however, the boon of privatization and necessary coordination among the provincial authorities, it ascended to Premier League.
Esteqlal of Ahvaz is more popular than his homonymic Esteqlal of Khuzestan, and will seek to first survive the relegation to League 1 with getting the hands of over 16 young players, and definitely will seek also to start the league with point.
Saipa of Karaj saw two important events in itself; it will play in Tehran province (it played for some seasons as Saipa of Karaj) in the new season and will have the charismatic leadership of Captain Javad Nekounam and also of Majid Jalali as manager; it would turn out to be a new pretender to the league title with Reza Norouzi and Gholamreza Rezaei.
Saipa has seen very tumultuous days; it will now play in its own Dastgerdi Stadium, where Jalali and Nekounam would remember good memories of the past. Both Jalali and Nekounam had won the 3rd season of the Premier League with former FC Paas of Tehran; now, after 11 years, they would imagine of repeating that felicitous year. The orange-kits will have Gostaresh Foulad of Tabriz, which seeks better days with getting Saeid Daqiqi, Meqdad Qobakhlou, Mehdi Kiani, Mohammad Nosrati, Amir Hossein Karimi, and Shahram Goudarzi. Gostaresh which survived relegation in the last weeks of the last season, will face difficult minutes in the first day where Mohammad Nosrati will encounter Javad Nekounam and Majid Jalali.
Siahjamegan of Khorasan, which fought hard to be in Premier League against such rivals as Mes of Rafsanjan, Paas of Hamedan, Sanat-e-Naft of Abadan, and Parseh of Tehran, had Reza Mohajeri resigned, and employed Rasoul Khatibi as manager and 18 players including Reza Enayati, Mohsen Forouzan, Meisam Hosseini, Alireza Naqizadeh, and Hamid Jokar to avoid returning to League 1 again.
The newcomer however will play Esteqlal of Tehran at home in Mashhad, and if Siahjamegan wins Estaqlal, it will be a great surprise of the new season, and will have a good omen for the rest of the matches ahead.
Esteqlal however, will go to Mashhad with repeating the scenario 3 years ago when Parviz Mazloumi headed the technical management; at the end of 11th league, he was replaced by Amir Qale Noei, and again now replaces him, with much sweet memories of good results in Tehran’s famous derbies against traditional rival Persepolis. Farzad Majidi, Farhad’s younger brother is now a favour and Seyed Mehdi Rahmati has returned to protect the goal line of the team; with Amir Hossein Sadeqi, Hashem Beikzadeh, Mohsen Forouzan and Gholamreza Enayati going out and Farshid Esmaili, Rouzbeh Cheshmi, Jaber Ansari, Mohammad Amin Hajmohammadi, and Meisam Majidi coming in, now Brazilian Rivaldo Barbosa (not to be mistaken for famous Rivaldo of FC Barcelona and later AC Milan) will strengthen Esteqlal’s midfield to provide more opportunities to Karrar Jasem and Omid Ebrahimi.
With large scale changes in Esteqlal, the public awaits better performance especially in the first day against their ex-teammates Gholamreza Enayati and Mohsen Forouzan, who would definitely seek to demonstrate their technical abilities to Parviz Mazloumi who dismissed them from the Esteqlal camp. Esteqlal will not enjoy the company and contribution by Hanif Omranzadeh, Hrayr Mkoyan, Milad Fakhroddini, Khosrow Heidari, and two other foreign players, which heavily restrict Mazloumi’s maneuvering power in setting his favored arrangement.
Losing point against a newcomer which will play its first ever match in Premier League would garner harsh criticism from the fans as well as Esteqlal’s board of directors; at least, Amir Qale Noei and others would not remain silent in the face of any failure and would be the new source of trouble for blue-kits.