According to Tasnim news agency, Esteghlal and Persepolis football teams will line up against each other for the 102nd time on Thursday, December 23. So far, Persepolis has won 27 times and the Blues have defeated their traditional rival 26 times. 48 matches between two teams did not have a winner, so that Tehran derby is among the few derbies in the world, where about 48% of the games have been tied.
The Maghrebs of the capital have met eight times in the last month of autumn, Persepolis won four times and Esteghlal tasted victory only once in this month. Of course, this one win is considered the most decisive superiority of the independents in the history of derbies. Three matches in November have also been tied.
The first confrontation between the two teams was recorded in Azar, 1352, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Homayoun Behzadi scored first for Persepolis and Ali Jabari scored the equalizing goal. A year later, Persepolis won its second win against Esteghlal in December. Ismail Hajirahimipour and Safar Iranpak opened Nasser Hejazi’s goal and Gholamhossein Mazloumi compensated one of Taj’s missed goals.
The next December derby dates back to 1356 when Persepolis won 2-1. Safar Iranpak, the best scorer in the history of derbies, scored a double in this game to score his last goals in the derby. Only Hassan Roshan’s goal did not save the Blues. The first Azar derby after the victory of the Islamic Revolution was in the Tehran Club Cup 1368, when Persepolis recorded another win in its record. Reza Abedian was the scorer of the winning goal for Ali Parvin’s students to win the Tehran Clubs Cup.
In 1390, however, Esteghlal managed to record its best win in the history of the Tehran derby. The fourth game out of five matches between the two teams in 1990 was held in the framework of the quarter-final stage of the FA Cup, where the veteran Esteghlal team with Farhad Majidi, Andranik Timourian, Fereydon Zandi, Mehdi Rahmati and Mojtaba Jabari, after a 0-0 draw in 90 minutes, They ended the overtime with a 3-0 win. Esteghlal won the derby earlier in May 2016 with this result.
Mojtaba Jabari’s two goals defeated Persepolis and Ismail Sharifat’s goal in the 106th minute sealed the Reds’ elimination. A little later, Hamid Stili resigned as the head coach of Persepolis and Esteghlal became the champion of the elimination cup.
On December 2, 2013, after 360 minutes of goal drought, the spell of consecutive draws broke and Persepolis passed the Esteghlal barrier with a score of 2:1. In a match in which Sajjad Shahbazada succeeded in scoring, Mohammad Nouri and Omid Alishah registered their names among the derby scorers, so that Amir Ghalenoui’s first defeat against Persepolis as a coach took place. The General was also defeated in the return derby and finished the season in sixth place. Persepolis also started its brilliant career with Branko Ivankovic.
The derbies of the 1401-1400 season, which ended with Esteghlal winning the premier league, both ended in a draw. The boring derby in Azar 1400 was without spectators and ended with a 0-0 draw. The last Azar derby in 1401 was considered one of the most exciting derbies in Tehran, which was tied 2-2. Rouzbe Cheshmi and Arslan Motahari were the scorers of Esteghlal and Georgi Golsiani opened the Blues’ goal twice with a header. The season in which Persepolis won the premier league and the knockout cup.