Marked for Ehsan Noorafkan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Feb 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 91 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Mateus Castro, 33, rolls back the years — 8.64
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.64 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market28 Feb 2028
The deal that would have taken Tomoya Koyamatsu to Vegalta Sendai has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Nagoya Grampus with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad28 Feb 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 Nagoya Grampus this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ismael Flores is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Nagoya Grampus training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teruki Hara 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.
Match26 Feb 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mateus Castro. 1‑0 against Albirex Niigata, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Ken Masui runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market28 Feb 2028
Window shut, Teruki Hara still here
Nagoya Grampus spent the window trying to move Teruki Hara on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rah Ahan may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match27 Nov 2027
Still nobody has beaten Rah Ahan
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Omid Khodadad 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.
Squad29 Nov 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 Rah Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match27 Nov 2027
Foolad made Rah Ahan work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Iliya Imani gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
An afternoon Omid Khodadad will want back
Marked 5.00. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market27 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Kevin Cuneo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kevin Cuneo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rah Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom27 Sep 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad27 Sep 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 Rah Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid Khodadad 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pejman Ebrahimi, and the manager let it.
The terraces27 Sep 2027
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
4.35. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market2 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
Squad2 Aug 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 Rah Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Graduation day at Rah Ahan
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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid Khodadad 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 Aug 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.
Market2 Aug 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Rah Ahan have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market2 Aug 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ahmad Moharrami is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market2 Aug 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Majid Torabi 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Jun 2027
Rah Ahan say no — this time
The offer from Club Brugge for Ahmad Dejagah was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ali Beiranvand is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Ahmad Dejagah 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Alireza Karimi out for 67 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rah Ahan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Ehsan Noorafkan: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rah Ahan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Ahmad Dejagah 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“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; Rah Ahan are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Loan watch1 Mar 2027
“I watch every Rah Ahan 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
Upbeat
Market11 Jan 2027
“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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Zargham Saadavi, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.67
A mark of 8.67 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kevin Cuneo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Omid Khodadad 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Whatever happens, Rah Ahan do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
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, 6.13, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Luis Cabrera 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 terraces11 Jan 2027
At 20 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Ehsan Noorafkan has improved at 24, which nobody expected
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
Market4 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Ahmad Dejagah 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“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; Rah Ahan are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Cabrera 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.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“I watch every Rah Ahan game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Naft Tehran runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ali Beiranvand 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rah Ahan, another week without a signature from Luis Cabrera.
Market4 Jan 2027
Ehsan Karimi is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rah Ahan has been clear about where Ehsan Karimi stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces16 Nov 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 26 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rah Ahan may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match14 Nov 2026
4 matches without a win for Rah Ahan
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Rah Ahan are no longer polite ones.
Squad16 Nov 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 Rah Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match14 Nov 2026
3‑4 to Gostaresh Foulad, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Jhon Cabal
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ehsan Karimi 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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Sep 2026
Rah Ahan are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 21 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market28 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alireza Nekounam will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rah Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match26 Sep 2026
Rah Ahan make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Rah Ahan have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ahmad Dejagah 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Naft Tehran made Rah Ahan work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 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 Rah Ahan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
Padideh come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rah Ahan did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ahmad Dejagah 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
6 goals as Rah Ahan and Saba go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Rah Ahan and Saba, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Honours even between Rah Ahan and Saba
3‑3, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ehsan Noorafkan dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
Ali Yazdani hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rah Ahan can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Omid Khodadad 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ahmad Dejagah
“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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Rah Ahan have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Alireza Nekounam 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.
Squad24 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Rah Ahan have let the market know Vouria Pouraliganji can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
5.62 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.