Hassan Habibi

Hassan Habibi Nakhmaghlai was born in Kerman, Iran, in February 1940. Iranian sources give his birth date as 18 Bahman 1318 in the Iranian calendar, 7 February 1940, while English Wikipedia gives 8 February. When he was four his family moved to Tehran, where his father found work as a clerk in the Ministry of Health. He grew up playing football in the capital and joined Shahin, one of the leading Tehran clubs of the era.

Habibi played as a defender. He was first selected for the Iran national team in 1958 while with Shahin. In 1960 he joined Taj, the club now known as Esteghlal, and in 1964 he moved to PAS Tehran, where he remained until he retired.

He was captain of the Iran team at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, won a silver medal at the 1966 Asian Games in Bangkok, and captained the team that won the 1968 AFC Asian Cup in Tehran, Iran's first continental title. In 1969 Kayhan Varzeshi magazine named him Iran's footballer of the year. He made 31 appearances for Iran and played his farewell match on 7 February 1971, his birthday, at Amjadieh Stadium in Tehran, with the English great Sir Stanley Matthews in attendance.

After his playing days Habibi coached PAS Tehran and led the club to the Takht Jamshid Cup title. In 1979 he became the first head coach of the Iran national team after the Islamic Revolution. His side qualified for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but Iran joined the boycott of the Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He then took Iran to third place and a bronze medal at the 1980 Asian Cup in Kuwait, and left the post after the resignation of the federation's general secretary, Nasser Noamooz.

He spent about ten years in charge of Ararat, the Tehran club of the Armenian community, reviving it in the Tehran Provincial League and taking it up to the Azadegan League. He returned to national team duty in the early 1990s with the Iran under 23 team in qualifying for the Olympic Games, and introduced many players who went on to star for Iran, among them Karim Bagheri, Mehrdad Minavand, Khodadad Azizi, Mehdi Mahdavikia, Yahya Golmohammadi, Afshin Peyrovani, Nima Nakisa and Javad Manafi. He also had spells with Bargh Shiraz and Esteghlal Ahvaz.

Hassan Habibi died on the night of Monday 2 November 2026 at Shariati Hospital in Tehran, after a long illness. He was 86. Tasnim News Agency, Hamshahri Online and other Iranian outlets reported his death in the early hours of 3 November local time. It came one day after the death of Hamid Alidoosti, a former Iran international who had played under Habibi, and Iranian media described the two losses on consecutive days as a double shock for the country's football. Iran's Ministry of Sport and members of the national team issued messages of condolence. Funeral arrangements had not been reported at the time of writing.

Habibi is remembered as the captain of Iran's first Asian Cup winning team and as the coach who rebuilt the national side after the revolution. Iranian outlets headlined him as Mr Football of Iran and noted his good name in the game, and the football site Footballi described him as an enduring and influential figure in Armenian community football for his decade at Ararat. Many of the players he brought into the under 23 team in the 1990s went on to become leading Iran internationals.