Marked for Ehsan Ebrahimi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Aug 2028
Ehsan Ebrahimi damages knee ligaments — 15 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market21 Aug 2028
“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.
Match19 Aug 2028
The wait goes on for Saipa
5 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
A falling-out at Saipa
Aref Gholami and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Saipa is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Match19 Aug 2028
A bad afternoon for Saipa against Zob Ahan
1‑2 to Zob Ahan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Aug 2028
$1.3M from Malavan for Ali Hassani. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Ehsan Ebrahimi damages knee ligaments — 22 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A fracture rules Alisher Shukurov out for 48 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saipa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market14 Aug 2028
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The terraces14 Aug 2028
Saipa sell a favourite for $1.3M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ali Hassani was one of the reasons people came, and $1.3M does not replace that by itself.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
Arya Delavari: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Saipa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets14 Aug 2028
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Pakhtakor is saying, and nobody at Saipa is enjoying the guessing.
Match12 Aug 2028
No end in sight to Saipa's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Saipa has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A falling-out at Saipa
Abouazar Safarzadeh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Kaveh Azmoun clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Ehsan Ebrahimi damages knee ligaments — 29 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
55 days out for Alisher Shukurov after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Saipa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
$1.4M was the most the club would pay and Siah Jamegan were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market7 Aug 2028
Saba come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Saipa did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Aug 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abouazar Safarzadeh and Saipa agree another 2 years.
Player ratings7 Aug 2028
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.94 beside his name.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Ali Dehghan in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Jul 2028
Saipa sell their best player to Foolad
$910.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Ehsan Ebrahimi damages knee ligaments — 36 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
The terraces31 Jul 2028
Supporters turn on the $910.0K sale of Ehsan Kheradpishe
He is going to Foolad, the club has $910.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
$1.3M on the table at Siah Jamegan. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.4M — a club that wants Mahan Beheshti enough to be asked twice.
Squad31 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Saipa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abouazar Safarzadeh 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.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lech have kept their man, and Saipa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market31 Jul 2028
Add another name to the list: Saba have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Roham Mohammad Taghizadeh. The answer from Saipa has not changed — yet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Saipa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Saipa have gone to Sepahan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Ali Dehghan in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saipa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Siah Jamegan have kept their man, and Saipa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Graduation day at Saipa
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.
Market2 Aug 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Saeid Taremi 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.
Market2 Aug 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ehsan Ebrahimi 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Amir Hossein Yahyazadeh commits to Saipa for another 3 years.