in July 1989 and played for the club until his retirement. He made his debut in a game against Persepolis in a quarter final Hazfi Cup match where he lost his penalty kick. He won the Iran league title in his first full season (1989–90) at the club in spring 1990. Esteghlal also won the Asian Club Championship on the following season (1990–91) after nearly twenty years. Ghalenoei lost most of the next season (1991–92) due to a heavy injury. At that season, Esteghlal could not obtain an entry to the next season (1992–93) of Azadegan league and thus was asked to play in the 3rd Division for one season. This meant the departure of many players like Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, Shahrokh Bayani, Majid Namjoo-Motlagh, Samad Marfavi and Reza Ahadi but Ghalenoei remained at the team and was chosen as the club's new captain. Esteghlal again rose to the top level of Iranian football in 1994–95 and was ranked second on their first season back to the competition. Ghalenoei also scored twice in the final game of the following season (1995–96) Hazfi Cup. In his last season in Esteghlal, they started off successfully both in the Iranian and Asian Cup Winners' Cup, but could not sustain the good performance. Their head coach, Mansour Pourheidari – who had the club to the Asian glory – resigned mid season and Nasser Hejazi was appointed as the head coach and finished the league with sixth position. He retired at the end of this season after missing many matches due to injury. He was the captain of Esteghlal in the last four years of his career, known as "General", a title bestowed on him by fans due to his outstanding skills in leading the team during his career as the club. International career He was first invited to Iran national B football team in 1985 by Nasser Ebrahimi, a coach that he began his career with, and showed a good performance. He was invited on following year to the national team by Parviz Dehdari and made his debut against China PR. However, he missed several international tournaments despite his good performance. For example, when he played in Al-Sadd, he was not invited to the national team squad for 1988 AFC Asian Cup because he was a member of a foreign club. For the 1990 Asian Games held in Beijing, he was not invited because