The Foolad Courier
Squad5 Jun 2034
A fracture rules Oleksandr Petrusenko out for 81 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Foolad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom5 Jun 2034
Foolad are in Europe
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Squad5 Jun 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Morteza Cheshmi
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Foolad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Jun 2034
Foolad refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 67 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.
Squad5 Jun 2034
The season belongs to Kasra Taheri
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Foolad have had the benefit of it.
Market5 Jun 2034
Anwar Rifai asks to leave Foolad
“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.
Market5 Jun 2034
Only the photograph left for Hamid Reza Shamsipour
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hamid Reza Shamsipour will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Foolad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom5 Jun 2034
Foolad to lose Hamid Reza Shamsipour for free
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Hamid Reza Shamsipour has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad5 Jun 2034
Saleh Hardani signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Saleh Hardani and Foolad agree another 2 years.
In brief
- Market Ehsan Shojaei comes home
- Market Eyes on Amir Ali Monjezipour again
- Boardroom Alireza Amirkhani will join Foolad for nothing