Rah Ahan Ardeshir (Amir) Ghalenoei was born on 21 November 1963 in Tehran, Iran. His father, a taxi driver, died when Amir was only thirteen years old. He began his career in the late 1970s after passing a technical test for
Rah Ahan, one of the oldest clubs in the Iranian football. He played for the club's youth team for two years and was promoted to the first team squad in 1981 by
Nasser Ebrahimi. He had a good performance there and scored three goals during the domestic Tehran Hazfi cup. Ghalenoei left the club after the club's head coach signed for
Shahin.
Shahin When Ebrahimi became
Shahin's coach, Ghalenoei moved to Shahin along with him. Shahin had several national players such as
Nasrollah Abdollahi,
Mehdi Dinvarzadeh,
Hamid Majd Teymouri. Ebrahimi left the club in 1984, succeeded by
Mehrab Shahrokhi who was the head coach for a short period before being replaced by Nasrollah Abdollahi. Ghalenoei became the club's captain after the retirement of Dinvarzadeh. During his time in Shahin, he helped the team to finish as runner-up in two
Tehran leagues in 1985 and 1986. He played his last match for Shahin in a 2–0 victory against
Persepolis where both goals were on Ghalenoei's assists. He left the team in the middle of the 1987–88 season and signed with the Qatari club of
Al-Sadd.
Al-Sadd He signed a -year contract with
Al-Sadd in 1987. He helped his side to two domestic league titles and one
Emir of Qatar (FA Cup) title. Al-Sadd also won
1988–89 edition of
AFC Champions League in spring of 1989 after defeating
Al-Rasheed in the final. However, Ghalenoei had already left the club and returned to Iran, and thus was not a member of the Asian champions squad.
Esteghlal shirt with Ghalenoei name given to him by the club in 2023 He joined
Esteghlal 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 return 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 midseason 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==