Marked for Ehsan Nekounam
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Kamal Kamyabinia out for 93 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Siah Jamegan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad28 Dec 2026
16 goals and a season average of 7.52. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad28 Dec 2026
An average of 7.40 in a first team he is several years too young for. Siah Jamegan have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Market28 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Hossein Karimi 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.61 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match28 Nov 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Karim Karimi will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Siah Jamegan escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market30 Nov 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Siah Jamegan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A season average of 7.16 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Siah Jamegan know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad30 Nov 2026
13 goals and a season average of 7.43. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Siah Jamegan's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Siah Jamegan has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Hossein Karimi 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
No clean sheets in sight for Siah Jamegan
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 8.18 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match14 Nov 2026
1‑4 to Persepolis, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Hossein Karimi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Majid Ebrahimi 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom16 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑4, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
A test against the best for Siah Jamegan
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Esteghlal.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Ehsan Nekounam 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 Ehsan Nekounam trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match31 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Esteghlal Ahvaz, and it could have been more.
Market2 Nov 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Shaqueel van Persie takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Shaqueel van Persie provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad2 Nov 2026
An average of 7.03 in a first team he is several years too young for. Siah Jamegan have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad2 Nov 2026
12 goals and a season average of 7.40. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Yousef Vakia 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 terraces2 Nov 2026
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.78 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Diego Santiago
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Siah Jamegan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match3 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑0 against Esteghlal Khuzestan, and it could have been more.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A brace, and Karim Karimi takes the afternoon — 9.87
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Karim Karimi provided it, and the 9.87 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market5 Oct 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Siah Jamegan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Shaqueel van Persie, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 9.99
A mark of 9.99 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The match ball belongs to Shaqueel van Persie, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Hossein Karimi 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Amir Hosseini and Siah Jamegan agree another 1 years.
Match3 Oct 2026
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Shaqueel van Persie in the middle of it, and Esteghlal Khuzestan unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Hossein Karimi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yousef Vakia 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Zob Ahan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kamal Kamyabinia, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Majid Khodadad after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The afternoon ran through Karim Karimi
Chances created: 10. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Ehsan Nekounam 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 Siah Jamegan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shaqueel van Persie, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Siah Jamegan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majid Ebrahimi 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Saba made Siah Jamegan work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.66 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout14 Sep 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Siah Jamegan will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Majid Khodadad, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.