The Gostaresh Foulad Sentinel
Match26 Sep 2026
The wait goes on for Gostaresh Foulad
10 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
14 days out for a squad player after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gostaresh Foulad will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match28 Sep 2026
Every point is an argument now for Gostaresh Foulad
Position 14 and 4 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Amir Karimi runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Gostaresh Foulad
Hossein Saki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match26 Sep 2026
Zob Ahan take the points off Gostaresh Foulad
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Reza Sharifi Basir 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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Ali Azmoun to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Morteza Hosseini is still paying for one afternoon at Gostaresh Foulad
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.
In brief
- The dugout Mehdi Torabi knocks on the manager's door
- Squad Ashkan Cheshmi is the weekend's best young player
- The dugout No place in the plan for Rahim Alboughobaish