The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Mehdi Yazdani 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.
Mohammad Reza Bordbar 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.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Mehdi Yazdani 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.
Milad Shojaei 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Rah Ahan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Yazdani 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.
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. 17 actions, 6.68, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Sina Ghanbarpour 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mehdi Yazdani, and the manager let it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Mehdi Yazdani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alireza Vafaei will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rah Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Yazdani 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Marked 6.57 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Yazdani 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rah Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sardar 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ali Azmoun has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Saeid Hosseini 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.