119 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sepahan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sepahan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer from Tractor for Armin Sohrabian 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.
Kaveh Rezaei 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.
$120.0K was the most the club would pay and Rah Ahan were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abbas Habibi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Malavan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Foolad; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Ghaem Eslamikhah 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guarani have kept their man, and Malavan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Mohammad Papi 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.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Kaveh Rezaei 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.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
1 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sepahan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ghaem Eslamikhah and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Malavan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Karimi 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.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Malavan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Words at Malavan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Karimi 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.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Malavan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Saeid Karimi signs something — a contract at Malavan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
5 shut-outs in 28 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Parham Ghannad has been having a lot of them.
59 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.
“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.
The offer from Foolad for Behnam Barzay 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Ghaem Eslamikhah 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.
Add another name to the list: Tractor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Farhan Jafari. The answer from Malavan has not changed — yet.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Malavan is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
104 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Malavan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Issa Alekasir is on it.
Naft Tehran next, and one man in the Malavan dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ghaem Eslamikhah 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Younes Akbarpour and Malavan agree another 4 years.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Saeid Karimi 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.
10 combined actions and 6.69. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ali Jahanbakhsh after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.09, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Malavan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Karimi 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑1, Ali Jahanbakhsh could afford to be generous.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Malavan told Abbas Habibi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Ghaem Eslamikhah 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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Malavan will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Esteghlal next, and one man in the Malavan dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Malavan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Farzin Moamelegari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ali Jahanbakhsh after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Foolad? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
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.
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 10 gone
That is the business done at Malavan 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.
The offer from Rah Ahan for Abouazar Safarzadeh 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $200.2K — a club that wants Alireza Enayatzadeh enough to be asked twice.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Union SG keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The offer went to Persepolis this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$150.0K was the most the club would pay and Foolad were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Saeid Karimi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Malavan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Abbas Habibi delivers — 7.56
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Abbas Habibi scored, was marked 7.56, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $100.1K — a club that wants Vahid Azmoun enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Rah Ahan this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.