Esteghlal started the 16th season of the Premier League with Alireza Mansourian completely shaken, and until the first weeks of the second half of the season, the discussion of his removal was seriously discussed. Even in some cases, the names of possible successors of Mansourian were also published in the media.
In this regard, on November 10, 2015, we published a special report that caused a lot of noise. In this report, we emphasized that Esteghlal’s poor results in the early weeks of the 16th League had caused the technical staff of this club to think of choosing a famous replacement for Mansourian. They had zoomed in on Dragan Skocic, who at that time was known as the former head coach of Sailors and Steel in Iranian football, and even this Croatian coach traveled to Iran on 25 September 2015, i.e. one day before the 16th league derby, to take over the leadership of the blue-clad team if Esteghlal lost the game. That match ended in a goalless draw.
Interestingly, at that time, Branko Ivankovic was the head coach of Persepolis and if Esteghlal won, his compatriot would replace Mansooryan, but with a draw in the derby, he indirectly took such an opportunity from Dragan Skocic.
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