Marked for Javad Zergani
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Aug 2027
Akbar Safarzadeh 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.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Everything agreed with Esteghlal, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Amir Abedzadeh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
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.
The terraces9 Aug 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Javad Zergani has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match7 Aug 2027
Saba made Naft Tehran work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abolfazl Koohi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdollah Hosseini and Naft Tehran agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esteghlal Khuzestan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Esteghlal Khuzestan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Mehdizadeh 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 dugout10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mohammad Sharifi, and the manager let it.
The dugout10 May 2027
Hadi Baghban knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Esteghlal Khuzestan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout10 May 2027
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.
The dugout10 May 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hamid Bouhamdan has written the date down.
Squad10 May 2027
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Mar 2027
18 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad15 Mar 2027
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Renné Rivas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Naft Tehran told Arash Akbarzadeh something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Market15 Mar 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Jan 2027
14 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match16 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑4 by Persepolis, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Javad Zergani, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
The deal with Malavan 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
$46.0K was the most the club would pay and Padideh 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Naft Tehran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renné Rivas 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padideh have kept their man, and Naft Tehran go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Mostafa Ahmadi
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Esteghlal Khuzestan are no longer polite ones.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Majed Saeed and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout2 Nov 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.
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 Khuzestan, and 8 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Aria Shafiedoost
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Aria Shafiedoost has come out of that comparison in the side, and Esteghlal Khuzestan have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Esteghlal Khuzestan told Aria Shafiedoost something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout2 Nov 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Malavan defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑3 to Tractor, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Match12 Sep 2026
8 matches without a win for Naft Tehran
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Naft Tehran are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mahan Sadeghi 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 targets14 Sep 2026
Padideh wanted more than $27.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Naft Tehran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vahid Mohammadzadeh 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.
Match12 Sep 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Reza Rezaeian 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Saeid Ghoddos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amir Rezaeian
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Naft Tehran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match29 Aug 2026
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Gostaresh Foulad, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Aug 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
1‑3 to Esteghlal, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padideh have kept their man, and Naft Tehran go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Naft Tehran are still strangers to each other
19 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Esteghlal Khuzestan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Esteghlal Khuzestan have done the hard part with Foolad, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad24 Aug 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 Esteghlal Khuzestan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Esteghlal Khuzestan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamid Bouhamdan 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Esteghlal Khuzestan asked and Tractor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Ali Eslami
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Naft Tehran's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Naft Tehran has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Amir Abedzadeh 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Zafarbek Rahimjonov is living that version at Naft Tehran, and it tends to show in the first month.
The dugout24 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Sardar Cheshmi to a room that had heard them before.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Naft Tehran have made the call to Malavan. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Esteghlal Khuzestan: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alireza Sadipour and Naft Tehran agree another 3 years.