Marked for Sardar Ebrahimi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad4 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Saeid Shojaei and Rah Ahan agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Oct 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.
Match2 Oct 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sardar Mohammadi. 1‑0 against Naft Tehran, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Saeid Aghaei 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 ratings4 Oct 2027
Reza Ghoddos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Aug 2027
A 3-goal lead gone for Rah Ahan
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Gostaresh Foulad kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Rah Ahan will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match7 Aug 2027
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.
Squad9 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sardar Ebrahimi 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.
Match7 Aug 2027
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Reza Ghoddos knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Reza Ghoddos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Jul 2027
A fracture rules Masoud Ebrahimi out for 28 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Ahmad Hosseini 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.
Squad19 Jul 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amir Mohammadi
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rah Ahan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market21 Jun 2027
Rah Ahan sell their best player to Saba
$310.0K 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 terraces21 Jun 2027
Rah Ahan sell a favourite for $310.0K
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Milad Khodadad was one of the reasons people came, and $310.0K does not replace that by itself.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Saeid Aghaei and Rah Ahan agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Amadou Niang 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Reza Ghoddos 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Feb 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market15 Feb 2027
Only the photograph left for Karim Shojaei
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Karim Shojaei will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rah Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Vahid 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.
Squad15 Feb 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
0‑1 to Persepolis, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.