Esteghlal have started the new campaign well, beating Qatar's Al-Sadd SC 3-0 in the AFC Champions League Elite match in Basra, Iraq, despite being deprived of club football for most of the year. The team's head coach, Sohrab Bakhtiarizadeh, believes that the prolonged suspension of competition has weakened the sport and its passionate supporters. "The most important impact of the war on Iranian football was the prolonged suspension of competition," Bakhtiarizadeh says. "For months, we were deprived of club football, and not only were the players and teams unable to train, but the fans also had nothing to talk about, engage in banter over, and so on."
Esteghlal were top of the league when it stopped with 22 games of the 30 played, two points clear of Tractor. The team's fans want Esteghlal to be declared the champions of the previous season, a decision that is to be made soon. The majority of the other clubs seem to be against such a presentation, especially those owned by industrial companies such as Sepahan FC and Foolad, which have suffered during the war.
The league has seen some decent crowds, with 50,000 fans attending the Tehran derby between Persepolis and Esteghlal in the second city of Isfahan. Iranian clubs are accustomed to playing home games away, and Esteghlal's 3-0 win against Al-Sadd in Basra was even more impressive given the circumstances.