The Saba Sentinel
Match5 Oct 2026
Saba are in real trouble now
Position 14, 6 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Saba
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Vintage Hamed Pakdel — 8.00
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.00, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Alireza Naghizadeh goes up and wins it — 7.19
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.19 for the rest of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Hamed Pakdel in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ofek Peretz is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match3 Oct 2026
A bad afternoon for Saba against Foolad
2‑3 to Foolad, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Match3 Oct 2026
Saba leaking at the back
4 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
No hiding place for Alireza Haghighi
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alireza Haghighi, and the manager let it.
In brief
- Squad Too much change too quickly at Saba
- The dugout Ali Khodadad faces the questions
- Squad Words at Saba training over how hard people work