Let me begin from my childhood and how I became attached to sport. In those days, leisure activities were limited due to the conditions of life in a rural city. The kinds of facilities that are presently available for youths did not exist back then; imagine not having water pipes, among many other shortages. Our family was a reasonably big family, 5 brothers that all found an attachment to sport activities. Exercising played such a huge role in our lives that, subsequently, we formed our own team. Abu Moslem, the same team that you see playing in the Iranian Professional League today is a result of our noticeable family affection for sports. We, like all the other youths of that time, did not have any decent sport facilities, but we would still spend most of our days in the alleys and back-alleys of the streets bare-footed playing football, volleyball and other sports. We had many youths in Iran who possessed great talents and perhaps, with the proper facilities and coaching, each and every one of those youths could have become a star.

In any case, I was more attracted towards football and a local team which step by step expanded to form the Abu Moslem Football Team. During my elementary days at school, alongside football, I used to exercise gymnastics, which possibly played a key role in the formation of my body physique. It was due to gymnastics and track & field that I was able to reach successful levels in other sports. Even at the ages of 17-18, in events such as the high jump, pole vault, and 400 meters track, I became the national champion. It was at that age that I also became the captain of the Mashad Football team and it is interesting to note that the team had players, who were probably 5-6 years older than I was, but just as well, I was the team captain and every player would listen to me. At that time, I would have never imagined that the football I had started for pleasure, technique, and passing time, would turn out to be my future profession and play a major role in my life.

After receiving my high school diploma, I attended the police university and, simultaneously, I represented the Taj Football Team. Back then, Taj had a lot of famous players, a lot of which where stars for the national team. The core of the national football team in those times, just like the 90s decade was primarily comprised of players from Taj and Persepolis. God Bless Dehdari and Mehrab Shahrokhi, God Bless Amir Jasbian, Aghayan Behzadi, Shirzadegan, and Boroumand, all of which were outstanding players for the national team and their respective club teams. Similarly, one should mention Ranjbar, Koozehkenani, Jeddikar, the Bayati brothers, and Hassan Habibi. In general, football was bipolar, a collection from Taj and Persepolis, and opportunities for players from cities other than the capital were limited. Shortly after, Pas was formed and the Air force also formed a team called Oghab which possessed many famous players such as Fariborz Esmaeli, Gholam Vafakhah, Mostafa Arab and Parviz Ghelichkhani. In Pas, Ranjbar, the Habibi brothers, Shahrokhi, and Faraki, with the presence of Nasser Noamooz, were the main players that represented the team, which still stands today.

At the age of 26-27, after the world military games in Greece, I stopped playing football. I went to Japan to participate in a 3 month coaching course. In that course, which was under the auspices Sir Stanley Rose, president of FIFA, and the management of the famous German coach Dietmar Cramer, Ranjbar, Abu Taleb, and I were the only Iranians that participated. After our return to Iran, due to the present internal football, I was not given a team to coach for a couple of years.

When I finally did get appointed as a team coach, I had found out through the papers. Due to the habit that I had, I would follow the domestic economical and political news through newspapers and one day I saw a title on the first page of the paper: ‘Mahmood Bayati, the Mens National Team Coach, and Heshmat Mohajerani, the Youths National Team Coach’.

It was in 1971 that I started my coaching career as the Iranian Youths National Team Coach. During my years as coach, I gave numerous opportunities to youths from cities other than the capital and many of those youths, for example, Nazari, Barzegari, Ghassempour, and Pezeshkar, found their way into the Mens National Team.

My team became the Asian Champion for 4 consecutive years, while before my time the Youth Team had never become the Asian Champion and this achievement is a record that no one else has been able to accomplish. Subsequently, my team became the Asian Champions in Tehran and in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada, Iran made it past the preliminary round for the first time in history. My last glory with the Iranian National Team was qualification and participation in the World Cup 1978, Argentina. In general, from 1971 to 1978 that I was the coach or the technical manager of the National Teams, Iran was undoubtedly the Champion of Asia at different levels and any team that was to play against us would feel uneasy and anxious. Even with Iran’s reserve team and the youth team, we Kuwait, which was under the management of Carlos Alberto and Zagalo, on their home field; this was considered a tragedy.

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, I moved to the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and pursued my coaching with a club by the name of Al Sha’ab, in Sharjah. This club did not have a football field and I would train the players in the streets. Even under those circumstances, our team along with Al Ahli, which had the services of Hassan Roshan and Hassan Nazari, made it to the final of the national play-offs. It was at that time that I was offered the position as the U.A.E. National Team Coach, after the release of Don Rebi, former coach of England. I began my work with the team right away and in that year we became the West-Asian Youth Champions and, subsequently, the same team with the addition of a few players qualified for the World Cup 1990 in Italy.