Persepolis arrived with $3.1M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Position 3, 60 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tractor can pretend not to have heard.
Mehdi Hashemnejad has gone, the accounts have $3.1M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tractor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ali Alipour 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.
Tractor offered $150.0K; Zob Ahan said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Padideh will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Padideh can pretend not to have heard.
Padideh asked and Esteghlal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Tractor paid $710.0K and Padideh took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The name of Vouria Ghoddos has come up in conversations Padideh were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Karim 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.
The phone has started ringing about Mohammad Naderi again, and this time the name on the line is Esteghlal Khuzestan. Tractor are listening politely and promising nothing.
The fee is $710.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Padideh drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
$350.0K on the table at Foolad. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$150.0K on the table at Zob Ahan. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Masoud Khodadad 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tomislav Štrkalj and Tractor agree another 3 years.
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Tractor spend $710.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $710.0K for Milad Karimi, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad21 Jun 2027
5 new faces, and Tractor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Padideh will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chase for Milad Kor ended with $820.0K changing hands and Tractor out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Padideh asked and Persepolis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The fee is $120.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Esteghlal Khuzestan drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Karim Karimi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Amirmehdi Bahmanpour is 20, and Padideh 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.
Nobody at Padideh will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Tractor and Padideh have settled on $710.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Milad Kor was one of the reasons people came, and $820.0K does not replace that by itself.
Shoja Khalilzadeh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
Tractor spend $2.1M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.1M for Amir Vafaei, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Igor Postonjski has his answer from Tractor; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Gostaresh Foulad will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Padideh were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Padideh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
9 goals and a season average of 7.20. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Karim Karimi 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Padideh can pretend not to have heard.
6 goals in one match, Hossein Jahanbakhsh on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Padideh and Esteghlal Ahvaz.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hossein Jahanbakhsh. 4‑2 against Esteghlal Ahvaz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Padideh will try again when the window opens; Tractor may not be selling by then.