Marked for Mehdi Beiranvand
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Reza Khodadad
19 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
There were 9 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Mehdi Beiranvand out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Padideh will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
Nowhere to hide for Padideh
2‑6 against Persepolis, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Reza Khodadad damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Mehdi Beiranvand out for 33 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Padideh will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Pejman Noorafkan, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Karim Yazdani 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Padideh and Persepolis in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.11, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Padideh dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 75. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Karim Yazdani 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Rah Ahan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Aref Gholami has had enough of the bench
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Padideh will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.