 After spending one season at Tractor, he signed a two years contract with Esteghlal on 29 May 2012.He named former Saipa head coach Majid Saleh as his assistant.Esteghlal also bought many stars like Amir Hossein Sadeghi, Rodrigo Tosi and Siavash Akbarpour from Tractor, Amin Manouchehri from Saipa, Fabio Januario from Sepahan, Javad Nekounam from Osasuna and Liam Reddy from Sydney FC.