The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Siah Jamegan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Mehdi Khezri 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Javad Zergani has written the date down.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
Everything agreed with Hapoel Beer Sheva, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
4 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.
Mohammad Hossein Sadeghi 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Morteza Azmoun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Siah Jamegan 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.
Reza Ghoddos 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmad Vafaei was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ahmad Vafaei is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Padideh know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Padideh. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Alireza Taremi 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reza Ghoddos 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Alireza Jahanbakhsh is on it.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Hossein Moharrami has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reza Ghoddos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Reza Ghoddos is on it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Alireza Taremi 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Reza Ghoddos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Morteza Beiranvand on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Padideh lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reza Ghoddos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout7 Dec 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Morteza Beiranvand to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Amir Dejagah
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reza Ghoddos 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.
Vahid Shojaei 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Padideh, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Padideh know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Mehdi Jahanbakhsh has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Alireza Taremi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reza Ghoddos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
$3.2M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Foolad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
He is going to Sepahan, the club has $3.2M 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Esteghlal have kept their man, and Padideh go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.