Marked for Saman Shojaei
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Plamen Krachunov out for 67 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Lahti will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Lahti this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Saman Shojaei is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tòfol Montiel 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Yohan Cassubie 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Jere Koponen
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Sep 2026
0‑3 to Bodo/Glimt, 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
A European lesson for FC Lahti
0‑2 against Austria Wien. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Lahti this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A move Saman Shojaei would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Saman Shojaei is living that version at FC Lahti, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at FC Lahti training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yohan Cassubie 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yohan Cassubie, and the manager let it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the FC Lahti 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.
Market21 Sep 2026
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Saman Shojaei is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Sep 2026
Rah Ahan will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Padideh were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad14 Sep 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market14 Sep 2026
Reza Mohammadi wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Padideh hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Reza Mohammadi 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 terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Morteza Karimi 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings14 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Álvaro Banquero 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
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.