It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Majid 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.
Marked 8.61 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Saba know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Ahmad Ghoddos scored in the 88th minute, Saipa had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Saba took the lot.
Saman Karimi 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.
At 26 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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al-Hilal can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Hilal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Words at Al-Hilal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergej Milinković-Savić 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.
Position 3, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ehsan Jahanbakhsh is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Ahmad Ghoddos 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mohammad Gholizadeh signs something — a contract at Saba or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadLucas Pruzzo falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Saman Karimi 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 name of Ashkan Beiranvand has come up in conversations Saba were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ashkan Beiranvand is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Saman Karimi 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Position 1 with 47 on the board, and the queues outside the ticket office are the part of a promotion push that never shows up in a table. The town has decided this one is real.
A mark of 7.91 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.
“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 Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
Saman Karimi 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Saba and Zob Ahan in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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; Saba are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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
The terracesSaba supporters have found a favourite in Amir Savaed
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
The offer from Gostaresh Foulad for Ashkan Beiranvand 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.
Saman Karimi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Pruzzo 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.
$820.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Saman Beiranvand was one of the reasons people came, and $820.0K does not replace that by itself.
“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 Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Saba hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Saman Karimi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ashkan Beiranvand. 1‑0 against Foolad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Majid 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.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Saba hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Majid 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.
105 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Saba they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Saman Karimi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majid 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.
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majid Ghashghaei 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Majid Ghashghaei 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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Saba know it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Ashkan 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Saba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Saman Karimi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Saba are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I watch every Saba game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tractor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Saba told Majid Ghashghaei something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
2‑3 against Zob Ahan, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The terraces6 Sep 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 14 of the 28 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Saman Karimi 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.23 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Saba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 18 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.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 9 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A first appearance Morteza Dejagah will want to forget — 5.79
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.79, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Saman Karimi 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Amir Savaed 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.