Marked for Ehsan Torabi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Aug 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 Padideh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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 ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.35 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Vahid Shojaei at his very best
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Padideh.
Squad31 Aug 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Ramin Pouraliganji knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
Sardar Torabi hands in a written request
“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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Padideh cannot stop winning
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad24 Aug 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 Padideh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Aug 2026
Padideh get the job done against Saipa
A 2‑0 win over Saipa, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match22 Aug 2026
Padideh keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.38, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.19, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ehsan Torabi
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mohamed Kanno has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Padideh know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2026
Padideh cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mohammad Vafaei 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mehdi Gholizadeh. 1‑0 against Naft Tehran, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.25 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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 ratings17 Aug 2026
10 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Karim Azmoun has seen what the next man earns
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Padideh that is a harder question to answer.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Abolfazl Jalali 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. Abolfazl Jalali is living that version at Padideh, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market10 Aug 2026
Padideh say no — this time
The offer from Sepahan for Ramin Yazdani 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mohammad Vafaei 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 Aug 2026
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hossein Khodadad 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Hossein Khodadad’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Padideh.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 8.07 — 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sardar Torabi has his answer from Padideh; what he does with it is the next window’s story.