It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persepolis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Reza Shekari. 2‑1 against Siah Jamegan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
Igor Sergeev 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 23 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persepolis can pretend not to have heard.
Igor Sergeev 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Persepolis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milad Mohammadi 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.
Igor Sergeev 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Persepolis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milad Mohammadi 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Persepolis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Ali Alipour decided nobody was going anywhere. Esteghlal Ahvaz had no time left to answer.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ginjiro Ikegaya has just signed for Persepolis, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Persepolis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milad Mohammadi 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Reza Shekari is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.