“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 29 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hamad Al-Yami, and the manager let it.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Ehsan Ghoddos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ehsan Ghoddos had Padideh level again within 4 minutes, and Tractor never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Flores 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 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.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Saeid Azmoun again, and this time the name on the line is Hajer. Padideh are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Ehsan Ghoddos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
7 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.
“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 Padideh, and it is not being withdrawn.
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. Padideh will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Padideh has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Raghid Najjar 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 ratings21 Feb 2028
Ehsan Ghoddos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I watch every Padideh game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Trabzonspor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Padideh will not try tonight.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raghid Najjar 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.
97 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 91 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
112 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Milad Khodadad 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 2‑1 win over Rah Ahan, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majid 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.
Position 2, 34 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.
Milad Khodadad 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Azmoun 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gonzalo Zelarayán provided it, and the 8.63 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Gonzalo Zelarayán in the middle of it, and Saipa unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
A performance of 8.21 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Ehsan Ghoddos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Padideh told Vouria Hajsafi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Milad Dejagah
SquadSaeid Azmoun falls out with a teammate over standards
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Padideh is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Gonzalo Zelarayán 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 watch every Padideh game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Saba runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
7.72, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Padideh had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad8 Nov 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Milad Dejagah
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Milad Dejagah has come out of that comparison in the side, and Padideh have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
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.
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.
Position 1, 15 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.
“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 Padideh, 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 Padideh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ehsan Ghoddos’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Padideh.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Majid Ghoddos 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Padideh, another week without a signature from Hossein Beiranvand.
“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.
Milad Khodadad 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.
7 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Azmoun 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 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.
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.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Padideh have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ehsan 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 32 actions, 6.05, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Milad Khodadad 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
“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 Padideh, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kaveh 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.
5 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonzalo Zelarayán 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Vahid Azmoun has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ehsan 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kaveh Vafaei trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 1, 57 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.
“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 Padideh, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Saba for Saeid Pouraliganji 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ehsan 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Padideh is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vouria Nekounam is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Milad Khodadad 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Ehsan Ghoddos 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Padideh will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Milad Khodadad 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Ehsan Ghoddos 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.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
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. Padideh will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
120 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.
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.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sardar Hosseini 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. 27 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.
Milad Khodadad 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.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Soheil Sarkari has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Padideh have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Kaveh 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.
Marked 8.03 — 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Marcos Giménez.
“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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vouria Nekounam is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaveh Vafaei 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Padideh, and 1 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Padideh have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Milad Khodadad 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Kaveh 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Milad Khodadad scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Milad Khodadad 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.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A brace, and Ehsan Ghoddos takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ehsan Ghoddos provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Martín Leal has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
16 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.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaveh Vafaei 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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sardar Cheshmi. 2‑1 against Naft Tehran, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
39 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.
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.
Three points for Padideh, 3‑2 the final word against Zob Ahan in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Kaveh 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.
“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.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Padideh can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sardar Hosseini 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.