Kaveh Yazdani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Omid Nekounam falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 5, 48 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ehsan Hajsafi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sepahan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid Nekounam is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Gostaresh Foulad asked and Siah Jamegan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Amin Saedi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gostaresh Foulad are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Mohammed Ali has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $50.1K — a club that wants Hossein Darvishi enough to be asked twice.
Esteghlal Khuzestan wanted more than $45.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Omid Nekounam falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Gostaresh Foulad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gostaresh Foulad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kaveh Yazdani and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 5 on 48 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Gostaresh Foulad would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Reza Ghoddos has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid Nekounam is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ehsan Vafaei trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gostaresh Foulad will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gostaresh Foulad. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.