The Esteghlal Herald
Match22 Mar 2027
Esteghlal refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 58 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market22 Mar 2027
Only the photograph left for Esmaeil Gholizadeh
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Esmaeil Gholizadeh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Esteghlal the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Esteghlal
Mehran Ahmadi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Esteghlal lose Majid Vafaei
37 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 Esteghlal players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Aref Aghasi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Esteghlal 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.
Market22 Mar 2027
The Abolfazl Jalali question follows Esteghlal around
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Abolfazl Jalali’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Country calls for Abolfazl Jalali
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Esteghlal lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Rustamjon Ashurmatov has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Rustamjon Ashurmatov has written the date down.
In brief
- Market Saleh Hardani runs his contract down
- Loan watch Aref Gholami has made Saipa’s shirt his own
- Loan watch Abolfazl Zamani has made Esteghlal Khuzestan’s shirt his own