Marked for Ehsan Taremi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Feb 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdullah Khamis
53 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.
Match7 Feb 2028
Saba up to position 3
41 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Tempers go at Saba
Ahmad Abdollahzadeh 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Loan watch7 Feb 2028
“I did not go to Naft Tehran to sit and watch. I want to come back to Saba and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 29 matches say the rest.
The terraces7 Feb 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
“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.
Match5 Feb 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Saeid Noorafkan. 1‑0 against Esteghlal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Market7 Feb 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdullah Khamis
62 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Tempers go at Saba
Pejman Hajsafi 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 Jan 2028
Words at Saba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Jan 2028
Point won or two lost for Saba?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Malavan? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market31 Jan 2028
Saba shop where it costs nothing
Yuta Imazu signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jan 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sardar Shojaei and Saba agree another 2 years.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Saeid Noorafkan 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 ratings10 Jan 2028
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Loan watch10 Jan 2028
“I watch every Saba 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Erfan Bahri 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 Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Defensive actions: 13. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match8 Jan 2028
Point won or two lost for Saba?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Gostaresh Foulad? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Saba
Pejman Hajsafi 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Saba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Match25 Dec 2027
A 1‑0 win over Persepolis, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“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.
Loan watch27 Dec 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saba, and 1 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Ehsan Hosseini is still paying for one afternoon at Saba
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 ratings27 Dec 2027
7.60, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Saba had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Nov 2027
Tempers go at Saba
Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
A bad afternoon for Saba against Zob Ahan
1‑2 to Zob Ahan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Loan watch1 Nov 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saba, and 1 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad1 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pejman Hajsafi, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Nov 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hadi Mohammadi and Saba agree another 1 years.
Squad1 Nov 2027
35 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Oct 2027
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.
Boardroom11 Oct 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ehsan Hosseini commits to Saba for another 1 years.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The terraces11 Oct 2027
At 22 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.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match9 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Sardar Shojaei’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Saba.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Saba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alireza Rezaeian 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Sep 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 Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Saeid Noorafkan 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 ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market13 Sep 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sardar Shojaei has his answer from Saba; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad13 Sep 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad13 Sep 2027
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Match11 Sep 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Persepolis defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Defensive actions: 10, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market30 Aug 2027
“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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Saba make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Saba have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hadi Mohammadi and Saba agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad30 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 Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market30 Aug 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Saba will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
The terraces30 Aug 2027
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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ehsan Gholizadeh. 1‑0 against Esteghlal Ahvaz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
7.95, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Saba had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Aug 2027
Hadi Mohammadi: that is not what I was promised
“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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Ehsan Hajsafi out for 17 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Age has not caught Ehsan Hosseini yet — 7.82
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad16 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ehsan Hosseini and Saba agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Match14 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ehsan Hosseini. 2‑0 against Saipa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Defensive actions: 20. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match14 Aug 2027
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Ehsan Hosseini in the middle of it, and Saipa unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 May 2027
Saeid Noorafkan 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Tempers go at Saba
Ehsan Taremi 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.
Squad10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ahmad Karimi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sardar Shojaei
60 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.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Defensive actions: 25, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 6.52, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Omid 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A promise honoured for Amin Saedi
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Saba told Amin Saedi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Feb 2027
Sardar Shojaei damages knee ligaments — 68 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Saba
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Saba is running low.
Market1 Feb 2027
Omid Rezaeian 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 Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Amin Saedi 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 Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The team sheet said everything about Ehsan Taremi
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Ehsan Taremi.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Sardar Shojaei
“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 ratings1 Feb 2027
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match30 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Esteghlal will be the happier side with the point.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
Sardar Shojaei damages knee ligaments — 130 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 130 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from Saeid Noorafkan at 21 — 7.67
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Saeid Noorafkan did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Saba may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market7 Dec 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Saba have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Saba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Noorafkan 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.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
At 21 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.