The role of an Iran national football team manager was first established in January 1941 with the appointment of Hossein Sadaghiani.Hossein Sadeghiani, First Iran national team head coach

Forty-seven men have occupied the post since its inception; six of those were in short-term caretaker manager roles: Jalal Cheraghpour (four games in charge), Nasser Ebrahimi (eight games), Homayoun Shahrokhi (five games), Mansour Ebrahimzadeh (three games), Erich Rutemöller (one game) and Ali Reza Mansourian (one game). In comparison, Sadeghiani held the position for the longest to date with a tenure of 10 years, although the team only played 3 official matches during that time. As of May 2019, Carlos Queiroz, has led the team in 100 matches, more than any other manager in Team Melli's history. The most successful manager is Heshmat Mohajerani, winning the 1976 AFC Asian Cup, Quarter Finalist of 1976 Summer Olympics and Qualification for the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Hungarian coach József Mészáros became the first foreign manager of the team in 1959.

Croatia has the largest number of managers to have coached Iran, with over five managers. Several managers also hold dual nationalities, for instance Jalal Talebi and Afshin Ghotbi, who hold both American and Iranian citizenships.

Position

Role The Iran manager's role means he has sole responsibility for all on-the-field elements of the Iran team. Among other activities, this includes selecting the national team squad, the starting team, captain, tactics, substitutes and penalty-takers.

The manager is given a free hand in selecting his coaching ("back room") staff. For example, in 2011 Carlos Queiroz appointed two Portugalians (António Simões as assistant coach and Dan Gaspar as goalkeeping coach), two Iranians (Omid Namazi as assistant coach and Markar Aghajanian as scout). and one British (Mick McDermott as fitness coach).

Appointment The process of appointing a new Iran manager is undertaken by an FFIRI committee, which is composed of board members and other high-ranking FFIRI officials.

History

Hossein Sadeghiani

Sadaghiani was the first manager of Iran national team appointed in 1941. He led the team in only three matches with two wins and one loss. His assistant, Mostafa Salimi, was also his successor. Sadeghiani was returned to the coaching staff in 1958 for coaching the team in two matches. He was also the first Iranian that played for foreign clubs, playing for R. Charleroi S.C. and Fenerbahce SK.

Mahmoud Bayati A former Taj player and head coach, Bayati was appointed as head coach of Iran national football team in 1967 and led the team in the 1968 AFC Asian Cup. Iran won the title without any loss or draw. He resigned after the tournaments in protest to the then President of Iran Football Federation and was succeeded by Zdravko Rajkov. He was returned to the national team after four years and was re-appointed as head coach in 1972 after the resignation of Mohammad Ranjbar. Bayati led the team in the 1972 Summer Olympics with bad results and was unable to qualify for the 1974 FIFA World Cup. He was sacked as national football team head coach in 1974.

Parviz Dehdari He was appointed as head coach of national football team in 1971. He coached the team in Olympic Games in Munich. The team was able to successfully enter the Olympic competition but Dehdari resigned before the tournament. He resigned because of differences he had with his assistant, Mohammad Ranjbar. He was re-appointed as head coach of national team in 1986. He led Team Melli in 1986 Asian Games and 1988 AFC Asian Cup. Team Melli won third place in the 1988 Asian Cup and Dehdari was sacked on 22 January 1989.

Mohammad Ranjbar Ranjbar began his coaching career as manager of Iran national under-20 football team in 1968. He was selected as assistant coach of the national football team in 1970 and was again selected as this position in 1971 by Parviz Dehdari. After Dehdari's resignation in 1972, Ranjbar was appointed as caretaker manager of the national team, which he led to the final victory in 1972 AFC Asian Cup.Ranjbar, Mohammad After the team's success with Ranjbar, Iran Football Federation appointed Ranjbar as the team's head coach and signed a two-year contract with him, but he resigned after two months.

Heshmat Mohajerani

Mohajerani began his coaching career in 1971; he started his coaching career as the Iran U-23 National Team Coach. During his years as coach, he gave numerous opportunities to youths from cities other than the capital and many of those youths, including Nazari, Barzegari, Ghasempour and Pezeshkar found their way into the Team Melli.

Under his coaching and management, Iran won the Asian Youth Championship for 4 consecutive years, while before his time the Youth Team had never won the Asian Championship. This achievement is a record that no other coach has been able to match. After this record with the youth team, Mohajerani was appointed as assistant coach to Irishman Frank O'Farrell.

Mohajerani's first major achievement was winning the 1976 Asian Cup when his team beat Kuwait 1–0 in the final at Azadi Stadium.

Shortly after, the team was qualified for the Montreal Olympic games and for the first time in Iran's history, the team qualified for the next round. The pinnacle of Mohajerani's achievement, however, was the first ever advancement of the Iran national football team to the World Cup in Argentina in 1978.

In the final match of the World Cup preliminary stage, Mohajerani fielded a younger Iranian lineup against the Kuwaiti team, managed by Carlos Alberto and Mário Zagallo, on Kuwait’s home ground. Although Iran had already qualified, the team entered the match unbeaten and won 2–1 against Kuwait’s full-strength squad.

After being drawn into Group 4, Iran lost the opening match 3–0 to the eventual runner-up Netherlands, but managed to draw 1–1 against Scotland, with Iraj Danaeifard scoring Iran's first ever goal at the World Cup and earning their first ever point. In their final game of the tournament, Iran lost 4–1 to Peru with Hassan Rowshan finding the back of the net.

Ali Parvin In late 1989 Parvin became the Iranian national team manager. He had already gained experience managing Tehran powerhouse Persepolis FC. At first his popularity grew even more as the team won the 1990 Asian Games football gold medal, but early elimination from the 1992 Asian Cup and failure to qualify for World Cup 1994 cost him his job. He was fired in 1993 and replaced by Stanko Poklepovic.

Mohammad Mayeli Kohan After good results with national futsal team, he was elected as manager of Iran national football team after Stanko Poklepović's resignation. He coached the team in 1996 AFC Asian Cup and was ranked in third place.

Jalal Talebi He was the head coach of the Iranian national team during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and the first American to hold this job. Prior to the tournament, he was appointed to replace Tomislav Ivic after Iran lost 1–7 to A.S. Roma in a warm up friendly match. He had held the position of technical director before he was named coach. He stepped down as head coach after the 1998 FIFA World Cup on 20 August 1998, but returned to lead the team again during 2000 Asian Cup in Lebanon. He resigned after Iran's elimination in the tournament.

Miroslav Blažević Well known throughout the football world for his 1998 World Cup sensation, Ćiro accepted an offer to lead the Iranian national team midway through the 2002 World Cup qualification process. Coming in ahead of the final qualifying round, he quickly developed a following among many of the Iranian fans. Ćiro kept the 3–5–2 formation that Iran had played with previously in the 96 Asian Cup, in which Iranian national team had won third place. He also introduced new players to Team Melli such as Rahman Rezaei, Javad Nekounam, and Ebrahim Mirzapour. Known as a loudmouth and showman, Blažević stayed true to form by claiming he would hang himself from the goalposts if Iran failed to beat Ireland in the deciding qualification playoff for the 2002 World Cup.Blazevic manages to unite Bosnia, The Independent, September 6, 2009 Ireland won 2–1 on aggregate, the defeat that marked the end of Blažević's time in Iran as his assistant Branko Ivanković took over.

Branko Ivanković

Ivanković was appointed to the head of the Iranian team on 29 January 2002. Under Ivanković, Iran's U23 football team won the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan. He remained the coach of the national team until the end of 2002, when he was replaced by Homayun Shahrokhi.

Ivanković had become very popular in Iran and the public media demanded a contract renewal, but the Football Federation was initially reluctant to appoint him as the head coach. Finally, after a period of negotiations he was reappointed as the head coach of Iran on 3 October 2003.

Ivankovic led Iran to 2004 AFC Asian Cup third place. after finishing second in their group behind eventual champions Japan, whom they drew, and being eliminated in the semis on penalties to the hosts.

Ivanković also led Iran to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, the third time in the country's history (they had previously been eliminated in the first round in 1978 and 1998).

Despite him being the most successful coach of the Iranian National Team in terms of winning percentage, Ivankovic was not liked by the Iranian government who deliberately tried to replace him with a native coach.

The Ministry for Physical Education, which is a governmental watchdog on sports, tried to replace the coach before the World cup in Germany. However the Football federation of Iran resisted the pressure and kept Ivankovic for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Iran, at their opening game at the World Cup, showed a scintillating first half performance against Mexico, but conceded two goals in the second half to lose 1-3. The second match against Portugal was not successful either, with Iran conceding two late goals to lose 2–0 and being left without any chances of advancing to the second stage of the tournament. Mexico drew against Angola on the previous evening and left Iran at an unreachable four points behind. So, the third group match against Angola became insignificant for Iran. Angola put themselves into the lead with the opening goal after one hour of playing. The Iranians managed to equalise fifteen minutes later, eventually scoring their only point at the 2006 World Cup since the match ended in a 1–1 draw. This point was, however, only enough for Iran to occupy the last place in their group.

After the World Cup, MPE removed the Head of the Football federation of Iran, replacing Branko Ivanković with Amir Qalenoei. This in turn resulted a FIFA suspension for Iran's football due to political interference.

Amir Ghalenoei Ghalenoei was appointed as manager of the Iran national football team on July 17, 2006, to succeed Branko Ivanković. After a quarterfinals finish during the 2007 Asian Cup, Ghalenoei was on the outs as Team Melli manager late in the year. Iran lost out to South Korea in a penalty shoot-out. Ghalenoei was after the game heavily criticized for substituting the goalkeeper just prior to the shoot-out.

Ali Daei