1996 Asian Championship Qualifiers (June 1996)

Following the disastrous results in the Asian Games, the national team went into deep hibernation. It would be more than a full year before Iran would take the field again and begin rebuilding its team. Much of the old guard were replaced with a new crop of players. While Abedzadeh was still in the running for guarding the posts, however, for the time being Zarrincheh, Moharrami and Mohammadkhani had vacated their defensive spots in favor of Khakpour, Minavand and Peyrovani. The entire midfield had been recast with Estili, Bagheri and Mansourian running the show. Pious had now retired and instead Daei and Azizi provided Iran with their offensive punch. The team was lead by former player Mohammad Mayelikohan.

Prior to the Asian Championship qualifiers, Iran played a number of friendlies against Asian opponents and while the results were nothing to brag about, however, they provided good preparation for a relatively easy qualifying group that consisted of Nepal, Oman and Sri Lanka. All matches were played in Iran and Oman in a double round-robin format. Given the weak opponents, Iran won all six qualifying games and conceded only one goal. 

Iran swept Nepal away 12-0 (8-0 in Tehran, 4-0 in Oman).

Sri Lanka would be defeated 7-0 and 4-0.

Only Oman put up a fight but was still defeated 2-0 and 2-1.

Daei would score 12 of Iran’s 27 goals while Bagheri would bag 9 of them. Iran would qualify to the now expanded 12-team 1996 Asian Championship.