Two goals and a mark of 9.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.37 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings13 Sep 2038
Jackie Muñoz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
10.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Malavan and Siah Jamegan, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abolfazl Hosseinifar provided it, and the 9.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Malavan and Saipa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Yonatan Refaelov is living that version at Malavan, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom2 Aug 2038
10 academy players handed senior numbers at Malavan
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Sho Maeda has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Malavan have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hossein Khodadad has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Shahriar Moharrami has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Malavan can pretend not to have heard.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
8 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
228 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The shirt still fits. Mohammad Reza Khosravi is back at Malavan, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Malavan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Afshar Sedaghat signs something — a contract at Malavan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.37 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
159 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Malavan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.49 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Malavan can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Malavan will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Malavan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jackie Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Malavan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Malavan, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Malavan and Rah Ahan, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jackie Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Malavan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Malavan, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The words a physio says slowly. 58 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Malavan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Zob Ahan held the lead for 2 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Malavan answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
The words a physio says slowly. 86 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Foolad the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Malavan will enjoy reviewing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jackie Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Malavan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2037
Haruto Suzuki was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Tractor ended it 1‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
Saman Ebrahimi could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 8.45
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 8.45, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
A brace, and Mahan Sadeghi takes the afternoon — 9.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mahan Sadeghi provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.54 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 114 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Malavan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.28 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Marked 9.51 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The words a physio says slowly. 142 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Malavan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The words a physio says slowly. 149 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Malavan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadDanial Eiri has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 130 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jackie Muñoz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Malavan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
In brief
SquadAmir Shahim has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Malavan will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gholam Reza Sabetimani signs something — a contract at Malavan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Shahriar Gholizadeh has just signed for Malavan, and for once the answer mattered.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Shahriar Gholizadeh and Malavan agree another 3 years.
Nobody at Malavan will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Malavan know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 May 2037
Words at Malavan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Apr 2037
Words at Malavan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 102 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Esteghlal Khuzestan kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Malavan will be asked about the last half hour all week.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.58 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 10.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.84 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.78 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Malavan and Padideh, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings2 Feb 2037
A brace, and Amir Shahim takes the afternoon — 8.80
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Amir Shahim provided it, and the 8.80 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Zob Ahan will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Sherzod Fayzullaev has pre-agreed a move to Malavan, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Amir Shahim. 2‑1 against Zob Ahan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The goal that put Zob Ahan ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Malavan equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
137 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Malavan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Mehdi Abdi 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Iliya Imani in the middle of it, and Persepolis unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Jackie Muñoz at his very best
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Malavan and Rah Ahan in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings8 Dec 2036
Jackie Muñoz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Saipa the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Malavan will enjoy reviewing.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.72 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.52 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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.
Mehdi Abdi 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.
5 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.
Squad17 Nov 2036
Mahan Sadeghi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malavan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.67 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malavan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
5 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.