A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Saipa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Mohammad Jahanbakhsh 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Masoud Yazdani 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ramin Moharrami after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohammad Amin Kazemian trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saipa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Mohammad Jahanbakhsh 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 Sobhan Khaghani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Siah Jamegan were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ramin Moharrami on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Marked 6.82 on 16 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sobhan Khaghani 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pakhtakor have kept their man, and Saipa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.