The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ehsan Beiranvand is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Saeid Vasei's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Saba can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Amir Shahim 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Amir Shahim. 1‑0 against Gostaresh Foulad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑6 to Siah Jamegan, 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.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Saeid Vasei 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.
Match28 Dec 2030
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Saba and Siah Jamegan in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
15 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Esteghlal Ahvaz were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Saba lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
A brace, and Amir Shahim takes the afternoon — 9.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Amir Shahim provided it, and the 9.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Amir Shahim 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Hossein Ebrahimi 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.
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammad Reza Bordbar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Minute 95, against Esteghlal Khuzestan, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It needed Saman Torabi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Esteghlal Khuzestan, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Amir Shahim is on it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
A brace, and Amir Shahim takes the afternoon — 8.70
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Amir Shahim provided it, and the 8.70 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Saba and Sepahan, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 2‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ehsan Beiranvand is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 13 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
0‑5 against Persepolis, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
7 goals in one match, Amir Shahim on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Saba and Esteghlal.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
Amir Shahim was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.75. 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Saba will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Saba is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Saeid Vasei and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Saba asked and Ludogorets said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mehrdad Abdi, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Aug 2030
Khalid Ismail has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Amir Shahim. 1‑0 against Esteghlal Ahvaz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.