Marked for Ehsan Mohammadi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match4 Sep 2030
The small margins put Saipa out
Out, 1‑3 to Malavan, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Vahid Nekounam gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vahid Nekounam has just signed for Saipa, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
No sign of nerves from Saeid Nekounam at 17 — 7.70
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Saeid Nekounam did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match7 Sep 2030
The wait goes on for Saipa
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad9 Sep 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Saipa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market9 Sep 2030
The deal that would have taken Sardar Beiranvand to Saba has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Saipa with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Tempers go at Saipa
Hamad Al-Yami 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.
Squad9 Sep 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mohammad Chaharmahali and Saipa agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Aug 2030
Ali Derakhshan damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Player ratings19 Aug 2030
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market19 Aug 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Saipa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Aug 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Words at Saipa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Ramírez 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.
Match17 Aug 2030
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Aug 2030
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market19 Aug 2030
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Saipa will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Market19 Aug 2030
Saipa have let the market know Sardar Beiranvand can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
In brief
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Boardroom
Saipa keep producing them
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Player ratings
The referee tires of Ali Dehghan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ahmad Rezaeian has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
Crisis meeting at Saipa
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad2 Jul 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Jul 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammad Chaharmahali and Saipa agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Ehsan Hajsafi 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.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
Intake day at the Saipa academy
8 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Squad2 Jul 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ehsan Mohammadi, and the manager let it.
Market2 Jul 2029
2 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Saipa could get for him.