Let me begin from my childhood years and how I came into sports. Naturally, with the conditions of life in those days, the kind of leisure activities, in particular in a city, were inadequate and limited. The kinds of facilities that are available for youths today were not present back then. Imagine, life was in such a way that we did not even have water pipes, added to the already present shortages. Our family was a reasonably a big family, we were 5 brothers that all found an attachment to sport activities and we would spend our time exercising and this played a huge role in our lives in such a way that consequently 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 outstanding(barez) family affection for sports. We, like all the other youths of that time, as they say, were bare footed and did not have any outstanding(anchenani) facilities for sports, but we would spend most of our times in the alley and back-alleys playing football, volleyball and other sports. Maybe, if we had the facilities and coaches, many a youths in all the cities of Iran existed that had the great talents (potential) and it was possible for every single one of those youths to become a star (genius) at their own level.

In any case, I was more attracted towards football and a local team which little by little expanded and the Abu Moslem Football Team was formed. During my elementary days at school, alongside football, I used to exercise gymnastics, and maybe gymnastics, played a key role in the formation of my body physique. It was due to gymnastics and track and field that I was able to reach successful levels in other sports. Even at the ages of 17-18, in events such as high jumping, pole vaulting, 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 everyone 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 played for the Taj Football Team. Back then, Taj had a lot of famouse players, a lot of which where stars for the national team. The backbone 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 stars that would stand out in 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 summary from Taj and Persepolis, and opportunities for players from cities were scarce. Later, Pas came into being and The Air force formed a team called Oghab which possessed many famous players such as Fariborz Esmaeli, Gholam Vafakhah, Mostafa Arab and Parviz Ghelichkhani. In Pas, players such as Ranjbar, the Habibi brothers, Shahrokhi, and Faraki, with the presence of Nasser Noamooz, were the main players that represented the team and the club still stands today.

At the age of 26-27, after the world military games in Greece, I stopped playing football. Then, 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, only Ranjbar, Abu Taleb, and I were the only Iranians that participated. After our return to Iran, due to the internal football politics that were present, I was not given a team for a year or two.

I read my appointment as a coach in a newspaper. 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 National Men’s Team Coach, and Heshmat Mohajerani, the National Youth Team Coach’.

It was in 1971 that I started my coaching career as the Iranian National Youth Team’s Coach. During my years as coach of the national youth team, I gave numerous opportunities to youths from cities and many of these youths, for example, Nazari, Barzegari, Ghassempour, and Pezeshkar, found their way into the National Men’s Team.

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

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, I moved to the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and commenced my work with a club, by the name of Al Sha’ab, in Sharjah. This club did not have a 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, I was offered the position as the U.A.E. National Team Coach, after nullifying/breaching/terminating the contract of Don Rebi, former coach of the English National Men’s Football Team; I was selected to coach the team. 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.