Marked for Sardar Ebrahimi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vouria Shojaei
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Padideh lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Ehsan Shojaei 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Fares Khlaed 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
Steady
Squad24 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vouria Shojaei
144 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Padideh lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 May 2027
Ehsan Shojaei 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.
Squad24 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Morteza Azmoun, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Padideh have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Reza Azmoun 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.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
Graduation day at Padideh
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market3 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sardar Ebrahimi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market3 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ali Hosseini is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market3 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Omid Noorafkan has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Esteghlal, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Padideh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vahid Torabi 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.