Marked for Amir Hosseini
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Naft Tehran have done the hard part with Esteghlal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Suood Ali is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The offer went to Saipa this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Amir Abedzadeh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market14 Jun 2027
The chase for Sardar Noorafkan ended with $130.0K changing hands and Rah Ahan out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad14 Jun 2027
32 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Jan 2027
37 days out for Hadi Mohammadi after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Padideh will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Padideh and Rah Ahan have settled on $970.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad18 Jan 2027
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
Padideh sell a favourite for $31.0M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Saeid Jahanbakhsh was one of the reasons people came, and $31.0M does not replace that by itself.
Match16 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Padideh
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market18 Jan 2027
“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.
Market18 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Padideh did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A season average of 7.33 with 16 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.41, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match10 Oct 2026
Padideh make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Padideh have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Padideh
Saeid Ghoddos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match10 Oct 2026
A 2‑1 win over Foolad, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match10 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Padideh. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 8.06 — 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Ahmad Pouraliganji, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Alireza Jahanbakhsh takes the afternoon — 8.74
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alireza Jahanbakhsh provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
$2.1M was the most the club would pay and Zob Ahan were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market14 Sep 2026
Padideh say no — this time
The offer from Saba for Amir Hosseini 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
The Saba deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ramin Pouraliganji reports back to Padideh with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Sardar Torabi 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Saeid 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The clock did what Siah Jamegan would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.