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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rah Ahan will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Rah Ahan offered $41.0K; Persepolis said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Masoud Vafaei was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rah Ahan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Omid Cheshmi 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Araujo 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.
Nobody at Rah Ahan 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 dugoutDario Casella asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Omid Cheshmi
0‑4 to Gostaresh Foulad, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Omid Cheshmi 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 medical room confirms 34 days on the sidelines for Ehsan Noorafkan, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Masoud 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.
Position 14 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Rah Ahan are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Rah Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Araujo 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.
Omid 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.
Marked 7.77 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Rah Ahan had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Ramin Rezaeian chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Naft Tehran defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.