The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Esteghlal rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Gostaresh Foulad had no answer to any of it.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.01, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
Esteghlal are 2 in the table and the town has noticed
46 points, a place near the top and a ground that has begun to enjoy itself. Nobody will say the word out loud, which is the surest indication that everybody is thinking it.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Esteghlal scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Duckens Nazon 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. 46 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 first defeat in 7 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Padideh; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Duckens Nazon 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody at Esteghlal 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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Padideh defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Esteghlal lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Hossein Goudarzi 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.
Something was said to Duckens Nazon and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 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. 7.89 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Esteghlal and Esteghlal Ahvaz in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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 Esteghlal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mohammad Askari has come out of that comparison in the side, and Esteghlal have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Duckens Nazon 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 8.25 — 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Milad Vafaei on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Malavan next, and one man in the Esteghlal dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 131 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Esteghlal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Persepolis for Alireza Koushki was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Duckens Nazon reports back to Esteghlal with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.40 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Esteghlal until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Esteghlal will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Esteghlal have lost him in all but the paperwork.
5 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.
He is going to Persepolis, the club has $1.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The clubs have shaken hands with Esteghlal; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Mohammad Askari was one of the reasons people came, and $1.4M does not replace that by itself.
Esteghlal Ahvaz pay $370.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sepahan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Sepahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Alves 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.
Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh 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 name of Ramin Azizi has come up in conversations Sepahan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.