Esteghlal Cancels Persepolis Championship Celebration

The big derby of Iranian football ended with Esteghlal defeating Persepolis 1-0. Persepolis, on a day when even a draw would have secured their championship, was defeated by their long-time rival, with Voria Ghafouri scoring the only goal of the match. Esteghlal reached the goal in the first half with a well-organized and purposeful display. A cross from Japarov, the influence of Tiam, and the final strike from Voria Ghafouri, who was named the man of the match, led to the goal. Esteghlal also missed an ideal opportunity through Shojaian. On the other side, the most significant chance for the Reds was wasted by Shoja Khalilzadeh. Winfried Schäfer, after two impressive victories against Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia and Foolad Khuzestan, managed to win the battle of ideas against Branko Ivanković. With this victory over Persepolis, Esteghlal reached 41 points and climbed to third place in the table. More importantly, they postponed Persepolis's championship celebration. In Esteghlal's lineup were Mehdi Rahmati, Majid Hosseini, Roozbeh Cheshmi, Omid Noorafkan, Voria Ghafouri, Omid Ebrahimi, Farshid Bagheri, Farshid Esmaeili (Ali Ghorbani), Daryush Shojaian (Jaber Ansari), and Sevar Japarov (Armin Sohrabian). For Persepolis, the players included Beiranvand, Seyed Jalal Hosseini, Shoja Khalilzadeh, Mohammad Ansari, Hossein Mahini, Kamal Kamyabinia (Sadegh Moharrami), Mohsen Rabiei-Khah (Ahmad Nourollahi), Vahid Amiri, Farshid Ahmadzadeh, Bashar Resan (Godwin Mensah), and Ali Alipour. To compensate for the conceded goal, Persepolis entered the second half with a more aggressive rhythm but could not disrupt the organized defense of the blue-clad players. The weak performances of Mahini and Ansari on the left and right flanks, the decline in quality of Vahid Amiri, and the lackluster display of Ahmadzadeh were among the reasons that allowed Esteghlal to protect their lead. Cheshmi and Hosseini, likely the youngest winning center-back duo in the history of Tehran derbies, along with the useful contribution of Farshid Bagheri, prevented any danger to Rahmati's goal. Winfried Schäfer said after his team's victory: 'Esteghlal achieved the team character it deserved today, and it is for such moments that I love football. The Persepolis players were very nervous.' Branko Ivanković also commented: 'I am not upset by criticism. The problem is that we could not control the first half of the game and lost the ball too quickly. In the second half, we were the better team, but it is very difficult to create goal opportunities against such a team.'