Saipa

Full name	Saipa Football Club
Founded	1989
Ground	Enghelab Stadium Karaj Iran (Capacity: 15,000)
Chairman	Hamid Sajadi
Manager	Mohammad Mayeli Kohan
League	Persian Gulf Cup
2008-09	Persian Gulf Cup, 10th
Home colours Away colours

For the automobile company, see SAIPA.

Saipa Karaj Football Club (Persian: باشگاه فوتبال سايپا کرج) is a football team based in Karaj, 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 training programs in Iranian football.

Saipa F.C. is the football club of the multisport Saipa Cultural and Athletic Club.

[edit] History

In 1989, SAIPA Company decided on starting a football team. They purchased a team playing in the 4th division of Tehran's league, and renamed it. They played in the 3rd division in 1990, and the 2nd division in 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. 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, but were relegated to the 2nd division in 1995. They were able to make their way back into the 1st division again, They became the champion of the IPL in 2007 with their manager/player Ali Daei.They played in ACL for the first and the got through to the second round under Ali Daei but in the league finished 13th and could not perform as good as the season before.After that Ali Daei was choosed as the Team Melli manager the club had to choose a new coach and they brought the german coach wich had difficult time and stayed for 2 months only.The club replaced in with Mayeli Kohan and had an average season and finished in midtable.

[edit] Season-by-season

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

* Azadegan League.
** Iran Pro League.

[edit] Honors

• League Championships:
  • 1994, 1995, 2007
• Hazfi Cup:
  • 1995

[edit] Players

As of 22 December 2009.

[edit] First-team squad

No. Position Player 1 GK Ebrahim Mirzapour 2 DF Morteza Izadi 3 DF Habib Houshyar 5 DF Majid Ayoubi 6 DF Morteza Ebrahimi 7 MF Omid Sharifinasab 8 MF Ebrahim Sadeghi (Captain) 9 FW Reza Khaleghifar 10 DF Dariush Yazdani 11 FW Amin Manouchehri 12 DF Ali Hosseini

No. Position Player 14 MF Mehdi Kheiri 16 MF Javad Ashtiani 19 FW Karim Ansarifard 20 DF Saeed Beigi 21 GK Vahid Sheikhveisi 22 MF Saeed Yousefzadeh 27 MF Mohammad Ziaeipour -- DF Saeed Gachlighezel -- MF Hossein Hosseini -- MF Reza Mahmoudi

For recent transfers, see List of Iranian football transfers, winter 2009–10.

[edit] Famous players

[edit] Former managers

• Bijan Zolfagharnasab (1993-1997)
• Nasrollah Abdollahi
• Behtash Fariba
• Hamid Alidoosti
• Giovanni Mei (2002-2003)
• Mohammad Mayeli Kohan (2003-2004)
• Mojtaba Taghavi
• Bijan Zolfagharnasab (2004-2006)
• Werner Lorant (2006)
• Ali Daei (2006-2008)
• Pierre Littbarski (2008)
• Reza Foruzani (Oct 2008-Dec 2008) (temp)
• Mohammad Mayeli Kohan (Dec 2008-Present)

[edit] External links

[edit] Official

• (Persian) Official club website