Saipa F.C.

Saipa Football Club (Persian: باشگاه فوتبال سايپا, Bashgah-e Futbal-e Saipa) is a football club from Tehran, Iran. The team is owned by SAIPA, an Iranian automobile manufacturer. The team has never had a large fanbase, despite some success. It is known to have one of the best youth academies in Iranian football and regularly promotes academy players to the first team.

Saipa
سايپا

Full name	Saipa Football Club
Nickname(s)	Carmakers The Foxes Oranges
Founded	1 February 1989; 33 years ago (1989-02-01)
Ground	Shahid Dastgerdi Stadium
Capacity	8,250
Owner	Aihan Amerian
Chairman	Kamran Amerian
Manager	Mahmoud Fekri
League	Azadegan League
2020–21	Persian Gulf Pro League, 15th (relegated)
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours Third colours
Current season

In the 2006–07 season, under the guidance of Ali Daei, Saipa won their only Persian Gulf Cup title. Saipa has also won the Azadegan League twice and the Hazfi Cup once.

Saipa is the football club of the multisport Saipa Cultural and Athletic Corporation.

History

Early days

In 1989, SAIPA Company decided to start its own football team. They purchased a team playing in the 4th division of Tehran's city league, and renamed it Saipa F.C. After back to back promotions starting in the first year, the Karaj based club was playing in the 2nd division by 1991. That same year they purchased the Shipping Department team's shares, and participated in the 1st division of Tehran's local league. In that year they won the Tehran city championship as well as the Tehran Super Cup, thus attaining the right to play in Iran's top league at the time, the Azadegan League.

Azadegan League

In their first year in the Azadegan League they won the championship, as well as the Hazfi Cup. They also won the league championship again in 1994 marking an unusually successful first five years for the club in Iranian football. The team was relegated into the second division in 1995, but were promoted again in the following year.

Since their second promotion to the top tier, the club has remained in the middle of the league table, and has often included some of the country's most well known players.

Persian Gulf Pro League

Ali Daei era

By 2001, the club's on-field performance remained stable, occupying mid-table position most years. Shortly following Iranian goalkeeper Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh's retirement, he was linked with the head coaching job at Saipa. It never materialized, but the club signed another Iranian, Ali Daei in a move from Saba Battery. The club had finished third in the previous season and now, with Daei on the field and Werner Lorant as a coach, the team aimed to work for the title. Shortly after the season began though, Littbarski was fired and Ali Daei took on the role of player/coach. Captaining and coaching the team to the title marked the end of a successful career. Daei also scored the winner in the title winning game.

Daei extended his contract, this time as a full-time coach. He was appointed head coach of the national team but kept his role at Saipa until the end of the season.

Return to mid-table and relocation to Tehran

Following the title winning year which saw the team play in the AFC Champions League, Saipa turned back into the mid-table places of the league again. Before the start of the 2015–16 Persian Gulf Pro League season Saipa announced they had moved their home city from Karaj to nearby Tehran. Saipa also made some significant transfers to attempt to return to the top of the league, namely Gholamreza Rezaei, Reza Norouzi and former CA Osasuna captain Javad Nekounam.

Season-by-season

The table below chronicles the achievements of Saipa in various competitions since 1993.

Season		Pos.	Hazfi Cup	ACL
1993–94	Azadegan League	1st	Winners	Did not qualify
1994–95		1st		Second round
1995–96		16th		4th Place
1996–97	Second Division	2nd		Did not qualify
1997–98	Azadegan League	7th	Not held
1998–99		4th
1999–2000		3rd	Semifinal
2000–01		7th	Semifinal
2001–02	Pro League	11th
2002–03		6th	Quarterfinals
2003–04		13th	Semifinal
2004–05		13th	Quarterfinals
2005–06		3rd	Round of 16
2006–07		1st	Quarterfinals
2007–08		11th	Round of 16	Quarterfinals
2008–09		10th	Round of 16	Did not qualify
2009–10		8th	Third Round
2010–11		11th	Fourth Round
2011–12		8th	Round of 16
2012–13		9th	Round of 16
2013–14		8th	Round of 16
2014–15		7th	Round of 16
2015–16		8th	Semifinals
2016–17		13th	Semifinals
2017–18		4th	Round of 16
2018–19		7th	Semifinals	Play-off
2019–20		14th	Quarterfinals	Did not qualify
2020–21		15th	Round of 16
2021-22	Azadegan League	14th	Third Round
2022-23

Honours

• Iran Pro League/First Division
  • Champions: 1993–94, 1994–95, 2006–07
• Hazfi Cup
  • Winners: 1993–94

Players

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK   IRN Mehrdad Bashagardi 2 DF   IRN Asghar Nasiri 3 DF   IRN Mohammad Hossein Heydari 4 DF   IRN Mojtaba Bijan 5 DF   IRN Mojtaba Mamashli 6 MF   IRN Aref Haji Eydi ^U25 7 MF   IRN Alireza Ghasemi 8 MF   IRN Amirhossein Mousazadeh 9 FW   IRN Reza Khaleghifar 10 MF   IRN Mohammad Ebrahimi^U25 11 MF   IRN Akbar Afaghi 16 FW   IRN Rahman Jafari 17 MF   IRN Sina Zamehran 22 GK   IRN Nima Alipour 23 DF   IRN Hamidreza Divsalar

No. Pos. Nation Player 27 DF   IRN Arash Mehri Babadi^U23 28 MF   IRN Mohammad Hossein Babagoli 30 MF   IRN Mohammadreza Moslemi Javid^U23 31 MF   IRN Pouya Mokhtari ^U23 35 MF   IRN Alireza Safari ^U19 36 MF   IRN Mohammadtaha Tabatabataei ^U21 38 MF   IRN Mehdi Goudarzi ^U19 44 MF   IRN Reza Faraji 47 MF   IRN Morteza Hosseinzadeh 48 MF   IRN Mehdi Kashefi^U23 70 FW   IRN Shahin Balijani 72 MF   IRN Mehdi Hanafi 77 MF   IRN Mehrshad Seydi^U23 80 DF   IRN Pouria Bali^U23 97 DF   IRN Mehdi Bayat^U25 3 {{{pos}}}   IRN Mohammad hadavand Mirzaei

Manager

Coaching staff

Staff^[1]	Name
Head coach	Faraz Kamalvand
First team coach	Asghar Maziar
Assistant coach	Mehdi Zarei   Kazem Borjlou
Goalkeeping coach	Farshad Bakhtiarizadeh
Fitness coach	Ali Asghar GhorbanaliPour
Doctor	Mahyar Mortazavi
Analyzer	Mohammad Palizvan
Technical Manager	Asghar Hajiloo
B team Manager	Kianoush Rahmati

The following managers had managed Saipa since 1993:

Name	Period	Trophies
Bijan Zolfagharnasab	1993–97	2 Azadegan League, Hazfi Cup
Nasrollah Abdollahi	1997–00
Behtash Fariba	2000–01
Hamid Alidoosti	2001–02
Giovanni Mei	2002–03
Mohammad Mayeli Kohan	2003–04
Bijan Zolfagharnasab	2004–06
Werner Lorant	2006
Ali Daei	2006–08	1 Persian Gulf Cup
Pierre Littbarski	2008
Mohammad Mayeli Kohan	2008–11
Majid Saleh	2011–12
Mojtaba Taghavi	2012–13
Engin Firat	2013–14
Majid Jalali	2014–16
Hossein Faraki	2016–17
Ali Daei	2017–19
Ebrahim Sadeghi	2019–21
Faraz Kamalvand	2021

References

1. "سازمان لیگ فوتبال ایران".

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saipa FC.

• Official website