The Foolad Courier
Squad27 Sep 2027
Rodrigo Rêgo 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 Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Nobody could get near Rodrigo Rêgo
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Sep 2027
A move Ehsan Shojaei would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ehsan Shojaei is living that version at Foolad, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match25 Sep 2027
Whatever happens, Foolad do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Ramin Rezaeian 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 watch27 Sep 2027
Hossein Kazeminia has seen enough of Esteghlal Khuzestan
“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 Foolad, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
Market27 Sep 2027
Foolad sign Ehsan Shojaei, one for the future
Ehsan Shojaei is 17, and Foolad have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Sasan Ansari
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
Foolad keep their word to Enzo Taborda
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
- Player ratings Nobody on the pitch touched Enzo Taborda
- The dugout Majid Ghoddos on the point
- Squad Ehsan Shojaei is a square peg at Foolad