Marked for Ali Eslami
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Oct 2026
Every point is an argument now for Naft Tehran
Position 15 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad5 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naft Tehran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match3 Oct 2026
3 matches without a goal for Naft Tehran
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ali Eslami beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Amin Pourali
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Omid Mohammadi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Torabi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Amir Abedzadeh 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Naft Tehran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yousef Vakia 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and Naft Tehran are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad28 Sep 2026
No place for Mehdi Sorkhi in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Naft Tehran are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market28 Sep 2026
Mehdi Sorkhi is 19, and Naft Tehran have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omid Mohammadi chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
No place in the plan for Amin Pourali
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Match26 Sep 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Esteghlal Ahvaz came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑4 against Tractor, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Shohnazar Norbekov 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yousef Vakia 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.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Naft Tehran dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Naft Tehran would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aria Hosseinifard, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Sep 2026
0‑1 against Padideh, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ali Eslami runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Yousef Vakia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match12 Sep 2026
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sardar Hajsafi 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Amir Hossein Nikpour, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
Saipa made Naft Tehran work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
7.69, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Naft Tehran had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Zob Ahan scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$950.0K on the table at Esteghlal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Al Shabab is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammad Javad Mohammadi and Zob Ahan agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Zob Ahan
Ehsan Pahlevan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahli have kept their man, and Zob Ahan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match8 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Naft Tehran, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
He is 20 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Ali Eslami has come up in conversations Zob Ahan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.