Mehrdad Minavand, a former player of Team Melli and Persepolis club, died at Laleh Hospital in Tehran due to coronary heart disease. The Iranian football veteran was hospitalized in Laleh Hospital on the 21st of January. He went to artificial sleep for six days at the diagnosis of the medical staff and underwent surgery. But the efforts of the medical staff to bring Mr. Minavand back to life were unsuccessful. Ali Ansarian, another former Team Melli & Persepolis player who has also played for Esteghlal, was admitted to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) of Farhikhtegan Hospital in Tehran on the same day.

Ansarian, along with the late Mehrdad Minavand, participated in a special program on the Persepolis Club television network on the 11th of January, commenting on the 94th derby between Esteghlal & Persepolis.

Mehrdad Minavand was one of the most important contemporary players of Persepolis after Hadi Nowruzi, who has passed away at a young age. Nader Bagheri, Kazem Seyed Alikhani, Homayoun Behzadi, and Jafar Kashani, veterans of Persepolis Club, have died last year. But all of them were veterans and over 6 decades old. The death of Mehrdad Minavand, at the age of 45, evoked the first shock he gave to Iranian football. Minavand hanged his boots at the relatively early age of 31. None of the players in Minavand’s team in Persepolis or in the national team hung their shoes at that age. He joined Persepolis in 1996 and played 108 times for the reds in two separate spells. Ali Parvin had called Mehrdad Minavand “the best successor” to Mojtaba Moharremi in the left wing of Iranian football in 1996.

Minavand was invited to Team Melli by Mayeli-Kohan and made his debut against Turkmenistan on 25th Nov 1996. He played in 69 games scoring 4 goals in the process. His last match was in 2003.
Mehrdad Minavand’s first national goal against Thailand. The Iranian national team’s equalizer in the Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait was scored by Mehrdad Minavand and his accurate cross ended in Ali Daei scoring. At the end of the twentieth century, the Asian Football Confederation selected this goal as one of the five most beautiful goals scored by a header in the history of the Asian Cup. Mehrdad Minavand was highly valued by the coaches of national teams due to his accurate crosses with his left foot and useful play on the left side of the defensive line. He was one of the most prominent players of the Iranian national team in two tournaments, the AFC Asian Cup 1996 in the UAE and the 1998 World Cup in France. Minavand considered the loss of a one-on-one goal against Ivica Crawley, the famous Yugoslav national team goalkeeper at the 1998 World Cup, to be one of the greatest regrets of his sporting life. However, Minavand’s brilliance in the games against the United States and Germany led him to European football.

Minavand is the first Iranian player to play in the Champions League when he was in Strum Graz, this is before the likes of Ali Daei, Ali Karimi, Mehdi Mahdabikia and Karim Bagheri, all of whom were his teammates in the 1998 World Cup.