Sepahan wins soccer cup for third year in a row

in which they played to a scoreless tie with the bottom team in the league, 18^th place Mes of Sarchesmeh.

It was the third consecutive championship for Sepahan and the fourth overall for the team in the 11 seasons in which it has been operating.  No other team has won more than two championships.

Esteghlal of Tehran, however, has been first twice, second three times and third three times—in other words, has been in the top three three-fourths of the seasons.  Sepahan has been runner-up once and never finished in third.

Ali Daei’s tenure as coach ended on a good note this year.  He took over Rah Ahan of Rey, a Tehran suburb, after it finished 15th last year.  The team was on its way to 15^th again at Now Ruz when Daei was in a serious auto accident.  Since then Rah Ahan has come alive and it finished in 11^th place, its best finish ever.

The table below shows the final standings after 34 games.  The top three teams are truly dominant clubs with 67, 66 and 66 points each while fourth place Saba of Qom had only 50 points.  And look at the goal differentials in the final column, showing how many more goals a team scored than gave up.  Again, the top three teams were truly dominant.

Under the rules in the Iran Premier League, the bottom three teams are relegated to a lower level league at the end of each season.  And the top three teams in the next league down are elevated to the Premier League.  Thus, Sepahan won’t have to face Mes of Sarchesmeh next year as it is headed down.

Traktorsazi of Tabriz finished second.  The team has become something of a nationalist favorite of Azeri-speakers in Iranian Azerbaijan.  A number of its games have seen nationalist outbursts that do not please the regime.

Its popularity could be seen in the attendance.  Traktorsazi drew 50,000 fans for its last game of the season in its home stadium while Sepahan drew 10,000 in Esfahan and no other game topped 7,000.

League table (overall)

			Pts	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
	1	Sepahan ESF	67	34	19	10	5	54	27	27
	2	Teraktor TBZ	66	34	19	9	6	57	32	25
	3	Esteghlal TEH	66	34	19	9	6	58	34	24
	4	Saba QOM	50	34	12	14	8	40	38	2
	5	Naft TEH	49	34	13	10	11	36	38	-2
	6	Zobahan ESF	45	34	9	18	7	29	33	-4
	7	Damash GLN	44	34	11	11	12	33	39	-6
	8	Saipa ALB	43	34	10	13	11	50	39	11
	9	Mes KRM	43	34	11	10	13	35	39	-4
	10	Sanat Naft ABD	43	34	11	10	13	49	57	-8
	11	Rahahan RAY	42	34	9	15	10	43	42	1
	12	Perspolis TEH	42	34	10	12	12	51	53	-2
	13	Fajr Sepasi SHZ	41	34	10	11	13	31	38	-7
	14	Foolad KHU	40	34	10	10	14	35	37	-2
	15	Malavan ANZ	39	34	9	12	13	32	33	-1
	16	Shahrdari TBZ	34	34	6	16	12	34	44	-10
	17	Shahin Pars BSH	33	34	6	15	13	30	43	-13
	18	Mes SCH	24	34	5	9	20	23	54	-31