Marked for Ehsan Beiranvand
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Jan 2027
“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.
Market18 Jan 2027
Esteghlal come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Gostaresh Foulad did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match16 Jan 2027
13 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Abdulla Al-Shamsi has just signed for Gostaresh Foulad, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad18 Jan 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 Gostaresh Foulad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market18 Jan 2027
Naft Tehran pay $84.0K, 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Ali Shojaei 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alireza Torabi, and the manager let it.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Naft Tehran's wait for a win
16 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Naft Tehran has to find a result from somewhere.
Match18 Jan 2027
13 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Rodin Quiñónes 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Albert Zambrano 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market18 Jan 2027
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market18 Jan 2027
He is 17, and nobody at Naft Tehran signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
$340.0K from Padideh for Ramin Hosseini. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
The terraces11 Jan 2027
Supporters turn on the $340.0K sale of Ramin Hosseini
He is going to Padideh, the club has $340.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Alireza Torabi 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Gostaresh Foulad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majid Moharrami 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Milad Torabi 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.
Loan watch11 Jan 2027
“I watch every Gostaresh Foulad game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Naft Tehran runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Ali Shojaei could not find anything
4.63. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Milad Mohammadi out for 127 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gostaresh Foulad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match2 Sep 2026
A 0‑0 win over Persepolis, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad7 Sep 2026
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match5 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Gostaresh Foulad are no longer polite ones.
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The deal that would have taken Ehsan Beiranvand to Saba has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Gostaresh Foulad with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Alireza Torabi 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Sepahan left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Ali Noorafkan
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 135 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market31 Aug 2026
Vahid Torabi hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gostaresh Foulad can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match29 Aug 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gostaresh Foulad are no longer polite ones.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Reza Ghoddos 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Masoud Karimi 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Masoud Karimi, and the manager let it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.80. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.