“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Rah Ahan close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Independiente keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ehsan Nekounam 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.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ali Rezaeian
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ali Rezaeian has come out of that comparison in the side, and Rah Ahan have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“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.
The offer from Zob Ahan for Morteza Gholizadeh 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Sardar Taremi, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.93
A mark of 7.93 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Rah Ahan asked and Persepolis 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Young Boys keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Mohammad Beiranvand 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.
At 19 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rah Ahan will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
At 19 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Masoud Khodadad 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mehdi Taremi 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Karim Mohammadi 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 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.
In brief
Player ratingsSardar Taremi beats them one at a time