Marked for Marcos Ortíz
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Sep 2028
Hossein Hosseini damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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.
Match16 Sep 2028
Ali Alipour wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Ali Alipour found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Zob Ahan went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Match16 Sep 2028
Nobody wants to play Persepolis right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad18 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persepolis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match16 Sep 2028
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match16 Sep 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ali Alipour. 2‑1 against Zob Ahan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad18 Sep 2028
32 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Ninety minutes of Reza Shekari at his very best
Marked 8.71. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Persepolis.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Julián Vitale 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hossein Hosseini
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persepolis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match6 Sep 2028
Siah Jamegan are out and Persepolis go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match6 Sep 2028
Persepolis win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Siah Jamegan will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Match9 Sep 2028
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Persepolis did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
No sign of nerves from Marcos Ortíz at 19 — 7.70
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Marcos Ortíz did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Hossein Kanaani 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Jaine Barreiro 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.
Match9 Sep 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohammad Khodabandelou. 3‑2 against Saba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Persepolis are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Aug 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hossein Hosseini
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persepolis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Age has not caught Igor Sergeev yet — 8.09
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad14 Aug 2028
“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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Marcos Ortíz is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market14 Aug 2028
Juan Salas wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad14 Aug 2028
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match12 Aug 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Igor Sergeev. 1‑0 against Gostaresh Foulad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Defensive actions: 18. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Loan watch14 Aug 2028
“I watch every Persepolis game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Saipa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persepolis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Marcos Ortíz is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Jun 2028
The paperwork is done: Mehdi Abdi joins from Malavan in a deal worth $4.3M. Now comes the harder part.
Squad19 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persepolis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market19 Jun 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Jun 2028
A move Marcos Ortíz would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marcos Ortíz is living that version at Persepolis, and it tends to show in the first month.
The terraces19 Jun 2028
Persepolis spend $4.3M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $4.3M for Mehdi Abdi, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Julián Vitale 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.