Mehdi Hosseini, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Mahan Bandani 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Baba Bello Ilou 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.
35 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Beiranvand 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Gostaresh Foulad is running low.
19 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mehdi Nekounam and Gostaresh Foulad agree another 3 years.
Jude Soonsup-Bell 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Nekounam 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gostaresh Foulad, another week without a signature from Jude Soonsup-Bell.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gostaresh Foulad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mehdi Nekounam 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Ramin Azmoun 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.
40 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.
70 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gostaresh Foulad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Ramin Azmoun 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.
“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 Gostaresh Foulad, and 11 appearances in 28 say he has earned the hearing.
22 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gostaresh Foulad has to find a result from somewhere.
58 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gostaresh Foulad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Gostaresh Foulad can tell you which week it ends in.
Mahan Bandani 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.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Sepahan? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Kaveh Mohammadi talk too
21 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gostaresh Foulad has to find a result from somewhere.
65 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.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.