Marked for Amin Saedi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rasoul Barichi
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal Ahvaz lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Dec 2026
3‑0, and Mahan Beheshti took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Esteghlal Ahvaz tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A brace, and Mahan Beheshti takes the afternoon — 8.46
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mahan Beheshti provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vahid Asgarpour and Esteghlal Ahvaz agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ali Kamali 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Both jobs done by Omid Cheshmi — 7.62
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.62, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Saeid Aghaei at his very best
Marked 8.37. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Esteghlal Ahvaz.
Market7 Dec 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rasoul Barichi
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal Ahvaz lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Esteghlal Ahvaz's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Esteghlal Ahvaz has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Sirvan Ghorbani 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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saeid Irankhah, and the manager let it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
10 new faces, and Esteghlal Ahvaz 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Esteghlal Ahvaz, and 9 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Mohammad Reza Khosravi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sardar Gholizadeh after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Mehrdad Abdi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mehrdad Abdi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
48 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Foolad
Ahmed Al Shamsi 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Foolad, and 3 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Esteghlal Khuzestan, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.88, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Foolad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Costa 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Hamed Lak
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Hamed Lak has come out of that comparison in the side, and Foolad have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Karim Vafaei kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohammad Reza Soleimani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Rasoul Barichi damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ahmad Abdollahzadeh 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Time is catching up with Hakim Nasari
Everybody at Esteghlal Ahvaz saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Sirvan Ghorbani 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Esteghlal Ahvaz told Parham Ghannad something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Amin Saedi, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Tractor next, and one man in the Esteghlal Ahvaz dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Rasoul Barichi damages knee ligaments — 146 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 146 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Esteghlal Ahvaz close the window on a squad of their own making
35 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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 dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Saeid Irankhah
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Esteghlal Ahvaz
21 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.
Squad7 Sep 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A loan enquiry to Siah Jamegan: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Iman Jafaripour is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Padideh next, and one man in the Esteghlal Ahvaz dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The paperwork begins on Iliya Imani
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Esteghlal Ahvaz have done the hard part with Malavan, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Foolad is saying, and nobody at Esteghlal Ahvaz is enjoying the guessing.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ahmad Abdollahzadeh 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Esteghlal Ahvaz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Hossein Moradmand 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sardar Gholizadeh to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Amin Saedi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
Malavan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Foolad did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Foolad
Hamed Lak 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mehdi Nekounam 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Karim Cheshmi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 7.21. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
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.