Marked for Reza Khodadad
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Dec 2026
$16.0M from Racing Club for Majid Karimi. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
Supporters turn on the $16.0M sale of Majid Karimi
He is going to Racing Club, the club has $16.0M 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.
Match19 Dec 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ehsan Azmoun, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. Gostaresh Foulad were going nowhere until he came on.
Squad21 Dec 2026
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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 9. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Dec 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
Foolad left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Ahmad 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match31 Oct 2026
Tractor left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ahmad Mohammadi
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ahmad Mohammadi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Gostaresh Foulad have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. Gostaresh Foulad lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Reza Khodadad dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Reza Torabi
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gostaresh Foulad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Iliya Imani. 2‑1 against Saipa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
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 ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.14, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Kaveh Shojaei knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kaveh Shojaei trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad26 Oct 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Hossein Karimi takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hossein Karimi provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Majid Karimi 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 Gostaresh Foulad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hossein Karimi. 2‑1 against Zob Ahan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Sardar Dejagah 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ashkan Hajsafi knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gostaresh Foulad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad28 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market28 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Morteza Mohammadi signs something — a contract at Gostaresh Foulad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Boardroom28 Sep 2026
A squad written off a fortnight ago has closed ranks. Whatever was said behind that door, it has held so far.