The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.26 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Saipa tried to reorganise, Siah Jamegan did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
8.37. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Siah Jamegan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Siah Jamegan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Karim Azmoun damages knee ligaments — 101 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Siah Jamegan can pretend not to have heard.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 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 Siah Jamegan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Sep 2026
Saman Azmoun was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.33. 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 Siah Jamegan game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tractor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Siah Jamegan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Siah Jamegan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Siah Jamegan 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Gostaresh Foulad had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Siah Jamegan did not stop to explain themselves.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Siah Jamegan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Siah Jamegan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑0 win over Gostaresh Foulad, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.