Zob Ahan

Full name	Zob Ahan Football Club
Founded	1969
Ground	Foolad Shahr Stadium Fooladshahr Iran (Capacity: 45,000)
Chairman	Saeed Azari
Head Coach	Mansour Ebrahimzadeh
League	Persian Gulf Cup
2007-08	Persian Gulf Cup, 6th
Home colours Away colours

Zob Ahan Football Club is an Iranian football club based in Esfahan, Iran.

It is sponsored by the Esfahan Steel Company, which also goes by the name Zob Ahan. The club's main rival is fellow Esfahani team Sepahan, which is also sponsored by the rival steel mill.

Zob Ahan club also has a basketball team, sponsored by the same Esfahan Steel Company, which is one of the teams in the Iranian Super League.

 History

Mohammad Ali Taghizadeh Farahmand established the club in 1969. They entered the Takhte Jamshid Cup in 1973. Zob Ahan prepared its team by buying 14 players from Sepahan. Zob Ahan has always been the wealthier team. The team has participated in the highest Iranian league for every year except in 1995 when they played in the 2nd division. They were promoted to the 1st division the year after and are now seen as contenders every season in the IPL ever since. The club's biggest honor to date has been winning the Hazfi Cup in 2003. The club was able to participate in the Asian Champions League after winning the Hazfi Cup, but did not make any noise and was soon eliminated.

 Season-by-season

The table below chronicles the achievements of Zob Ahan since 2001.

 Club honours

• National Championships

Runner Up (1): 2004-2005

• Hazfi Cup:

Winners (1): 2003

 Club managers

• Yevgeny Lyadin (1974)
• ?
• Yevgeny Lyadin (1993 - 1995)
• ?
• Nasser Hejazi (1998 - 2001)
• Bahram Atef (2001 - 2002)
• Samvel Darbinyan (2002 - 2004)
• Rasoul Korbekandi (2004 - Jun 2007)
• Zoran ?or?evi? (Jun 2007 - Oct 2007)
• Bijan Zolfagharnasab (Nov 2007 - May 2008)
• Mansour Ebrahimzadeh (May 2008 - Present)

 Current Management Team

• Head Coach : Mansour Ebrahimzadeh
• Assistant Coach : Ali Shojaei

 Players

As of October 9, 2007, the numbers are established according to Iranian Pro League Stats.

 First-team squad

No. Position Player 1 GK Issa Ndoye 2 DF Mohammad Ali Ahmadi 3 MF Seyed Ahmad Mohammadpour 4 DF Farshid Talebi 5 MF Hamid Parvaz 6 DF Mostafa Salehi Nejad 8 FW Fábio da Silva 9 MF Mohammad Reza Khalatbari 10 FW Mohsen Mosalman 11 FW Vahid Amraei 12 MF Mehdi Zarei 13 DF Akbar Shoja 14 MF Mohammad Salsali (Captain) 15 FW Esmail Farhadi 16 FW Igor

No. Position Player 20 MF Arian Aragoli 21 MF Mohammad Mansouri 22 GK Abbas Ghasemi 24 MF Ghasem Haddadifar 26 DF Hassan Ashjari 27 MF Babak Chehrazi 29 DF Reza Esfahani 30 GK Mehdi Gharavi -- GK Mohammad Bagher Sadeghi -- MF Mehdi Bagri -- DF Armen Ghazaryan -- DF Haidar Obeid FW Omid Abolhassani -- FW Bajram Nebihi -- DF Jalal Omidian

 2008/2009 Transfers

In: No. Position Player   DF Seyed Mohammad Hosseini (from Aboomoslem)   DF Jalal Omidian (from Mes)   FW Bajram Nebihi (from Augsburg)   FW Ali Karimi (from Sorkhpooshan)   DF Haidar Obeid (from Al-Wakrah)   FW Igor (from Coritiba) Out: No. Position Player 35 DF Hadi Shakouri (to Esteghlal) 7 MF Mohammed Martin Mensah (Released)

 Famous players

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