The Iran national football team formed in 1920 and joined FIFA in 1945.The team affiliated to the Asian Football Confederation in 1958. Iran was suspended from FIFA in 2006 after government interference with the sport. The ban was lifted after less than a month and Iran returned to world football.
Iran has performed well at a regional level, becoming Asian Cup winners three times. All of the wins game before the team appeared at a world cup finals and the team has not added to its cup haul since 1976.
The 1980’s was a bad decade for Iran in general. With the 1979 revolution and the war with Iraq, football wasn’t on the agenda for Iranians for nine years. Due to the decimation of infrastructure and domestic teams, Iran failed to qualify for either the 1990 or 1994 world cups.