Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Saeid Dejagah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gostaresh Foulad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
$580.0K 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ehsan Hajsafi and Gostaresh Foulad agree another 1 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ehsan Hajsafi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alireza Amirkhani has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Adib Zarei 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Hasan Jafari 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Hasan Jafari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hasan Jafari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ali Nekounam signs something — a contract at Gostaresh Foulad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
21 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Saeid Dejagah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gostaresh Foulad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sina Ghanbarpour 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 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ali Nekounam signs something — a contract at Gostaresh Foulad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al Shaab keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Saeid Dejagah has agreed terms with Malavan for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hasan Jafari 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 words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“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 were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al Nasr is saying, and nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is enjoying the guessing.
The offer from Siah Jamegan for Saeid Dejagah was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ali Nekounam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$34.3M 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.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Esteghlal Ahvaz waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gostaresh Foulad is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The terraces11 Jan 2027
Supporters turn on the $34.3M sale of Majid Karimi
He is going to Inter, the club has $34.3M 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gostaresh Foulad can pretend not to have heard.