Marked for Mohammad Amin Moradi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 6.65 on 17 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Foolad
Amir Masoud Sarabadani 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Yusuf Akçiçek 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Amir Masoud Sarabadani, and the manager let it.
Match7 Nov 2026
Tractor left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Too much change too quickly at Foolad
6 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Foolad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match2 Sep 2026
The cup run ends for Foolad
1‑1 against Malavan, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Foolad
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Foolad are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The Foolad board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match5 Sep 2026
7 unbeaten for Foolad
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Foolad did not have in the autumn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sho Araki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Foolad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Akçiçek 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
The kick that got away from Yousef Mazrae
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
In brief
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Squad
8 new faces, and Foolad are still learning each other
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Market
Foolad bring in an old head
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Match
Foolad draw a blank against Esteghlal