Marked for Pejman Noorafkan
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Sep 2026
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Naft Tehran had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Rah Ahan did not stop to explain themselves.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Walter Montoya 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.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
At 23 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Naft Tehran, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.79 on the card, and the Rah Ahan support went home talking about one name.
Loan watch28 Sep 2026
“I watch every Rah Ahan game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Stade Malien runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Rah Ahan
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rah Ahan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Walter Montoya, 33, rolls back the years — 7.86
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kaveh Vafaei in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Walter Montoya 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kaveh Vafaei 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Rah Ahan hit back inside 3 minutes
Esteghlal Khuzestan held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Rah Ahan answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pejman Noorafkan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market21 Sep 2026
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Reza Yazdani leaves Rah Ahan the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Sep 2026
The small margins put Rah Ahan out
Out, 1‑0 to Zob Ahan, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 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.
Squad7 Sep 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Walter Montoya.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
7.70, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Rah Ahan had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Rah Ahan will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rah Ahan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kaveh Vafaei in a row with a teammate
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.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Reza Yazdani and Rah Ahan agree another 2 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Masoud Nekounam is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market3 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Karim Jahanbakhsh is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market3 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Reza Ebrahimi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market3 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mehdi 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.