“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 The request is on a desk at Esteghlal Ahvaz, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Esteghlal Ahvaz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iliya Imani 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Esteghlal Ahvaz can pretend not to have heard.
Diego Aravena 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Agustín Báez 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.
He is 18, and nobody at Esteghlal Ahvaz signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
52 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.
Majid Moharrami 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Istanbulspor will make the call about Saeid Pouraliganji this week. Rah Ahan have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Esteghlal Ahvaz pay $56.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Joel Medina 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.
96 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 128 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rah Ahan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
28 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.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ehsan Vafaei will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rah Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
1‑4 against Persepolis, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Morteza Torabi did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rah Ahan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Majid Moharrami 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 Ehsan Vafaei has come up in conversations Rah Ahan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Marked 8.15 — 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Majid Jahanbakhsh is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.