Ehsan Vafaei

Left Back - Padideh
31 Jul 2028
Monday
Process

Marked for Ehsan Vafaei

56 Edition

The Padideh Gazette

23 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Karim Gholizadeh

28 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.

Match

Nobody wins at Padideh

15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.

Player ratings

Milad Jahanbakhsh scores twice — 8.57

Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.

Market

Karim Vafaei raises the bar for Padideh

“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Padideh heard it as anything else.

Squad

Karim Vafaei in a row with a teammate

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.

Match

Milad Jahanbakhsh sends Padideh past Naft Tehran

It finished 2‑1, and it was Milad Jahanbakhsh’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Padideh.

Loan watch

Omid Hosseini counts the days

“I watch every Padideh game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Naft Tehran runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.

Squad

5 new faces, and Padideh 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.

Squad

The manager makes an example of Ehsan Vafaei

“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.

In brief

Back issues
6 Edition

The Padideh Gazette

7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Match

Reza Yazdani sends Padideh through

Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Reza Yazdani obliged against Naft Tehran. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Padideh.

Player ratings

A defender's afternoon for Karim Vafaei

Defensive actions: 27. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.

Market

Pejman Nekounam hands in a written request

“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.

Squad

Tempers go at Padideh

Karim Vafaei 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.

Match

Milad Jahanbakhsh the difference as Padideh beat Esteghlal Ahvaz

Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Milad Jahanbakhsh. 1‑0 against Esteghlal Ahvaz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.

Squad

Morteza Torabi 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.

Player ratings

Majid Noorafkan runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Squad

No hiding place for Alireza Ebrahimi

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alireza Ebrahimi, and the manager let it.

Player ratings

The afternoon belonged to Reza Yazdani

A mark of 7.58, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.

In brief