16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gostaresh Foulad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Gostaresh Foulad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid 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.
Alireza Karami 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.
“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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Sardar Shojaei has written the date down.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Keykhosro Siahpour has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Gostaresh Foulad have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Omid Nekounam 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.
“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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad 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 Gostaresh Foulad. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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. Ehsan Mohammadi 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Karim Dejagah could afford to be generous.
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.
“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.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Gostaresh Foulad close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 9 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Kaveh Yazdani 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Omid Nekounam 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.
Gostaresh Foulad ran out of time with Esteghlal Khuzestan. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Gostaresh Foulad know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Foolad is saying, and nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is enjoying the guessing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Amit Cohen
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Gostaresh Foulad, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Omid Nekounam 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Karim Dejagah kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
89 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Gostaresh Foulad will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Alireza Karami 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.
Saipa next, and one man in the Gostaresh Foulad dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehdi Beiranvand signs something — a contract at Gostaresh Foulad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.61 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Kaveh Yazdani 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Amir Hossein Neshatjoo and Gostaresh Foulad agree another 1 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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.
“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 Amir Hossein Neshatjoo.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Zob Ahan in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alireza Karami 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Asan Vaniyev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gostaresh Foulad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The deal with Persepolis is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Kaveh Yazdani 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 Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Mohammad Amini has written the date down.
“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 Gostaresh Foulad, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Isaac Lee is living that version at Gostaresh Foulad, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sepahan have kept their man, and Gostaresh Foulad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Gostaresh Foulad will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mohammad Cheshmi 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.
26 appearances and 1 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
The dugout31 May 2027
Ehsan Vafaei is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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 Ali Beiranvand is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ehsan Mohammadi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Gostaresh Foulad have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
“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 Gostaresh Foulad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gostaresh Foulad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kaveh Yazdani 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 Omid Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 5 on 48 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Gostaresh Foulad would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Reza Ghoddos has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ehsan Vafaei trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gostaresh Foulad will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad 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 Gostaresh Foulad. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Asan Vaniyev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gostaresh Foulad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
48 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Zob Ahan watched Ali Beiranvand again at the weekend, and this time they did not bother hiding it. Clubs only stop hiding when they want the price to start moving.
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. Omid 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gostaresh Foulad. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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. Amir Hossein Neshatjoo 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“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 dugout5 Apr 2027
Ehsan Vafaei is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad 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.
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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Omid Nekounam 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gostaresh Foulad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Gostaresh Foulad that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naft Tehran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody at Naft Tehran 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.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Naft Tehran lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 25 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Amir Abedzadeh 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Omid Hosseini on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at Naft Tehran 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.
In brief
The dugoutMostafa Ahmadi asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Esteghlal go through and Naft Tehran go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Foolad will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pejman Mohammadi. 2‑1 against Foolad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.27 — 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Alireza Haghighi will call it something else in private.
In brief
Player ratingsFrom twelve yards, and Shahab Zahedi misses
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Naft Tehran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Naft Tehran had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Tembetary, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Naft Tehran pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
6 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.
Amir Abedzadeh 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 6.94, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Naft Tehran asked and Malavan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mostafa Ahmadi 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 Amir Abedzadeh is on it.
7 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mostafa Ahmadi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ahmad Savari 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.
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.
Naft Tehran will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Omid Hosseini was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Naft Tehran dressing room was either.
6 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.
16 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omid Hosseini chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Siah Jamegan? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ehsan Mohammadi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Naft Tehran needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutEhsan Shojaei has become a man the manager trusts
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omid 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gostaresh Foulad told Abolfazl Zamani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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.
Mohammad Daneshgar 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 Mostafa Ahmadi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ehsan Mohammadi, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Omid Hosseini to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Naft Tehran, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Ehsan Shojaei is on it.
Naft Tehran close the window on a squad of their own making
28 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Naft Tehran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mostafa Ahmadi 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.
Naft Tehran 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.
Ahmad Savari 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Naft Tehran are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Naft Tehran will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Gostaresh Foulad have gone to Foolad with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Siah Jamegan have kept their man, and Gostaresh Foulad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Hossein Neshatjoo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mostafa Ahmadi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mohammad Daneshgar, and the manager let it.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Naft Tehran dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Omid Hosseini left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Ehsan Mohammadi is in the works
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Kaveh Yazdani 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.
4 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ramin Vafaei 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vahid Nekounam has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Reza Ghoddos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ramin Mohammadi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ahmad Hajsafi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.