The Zob Ahan Chronicle
Squad7 Aug 2028
The knee: Mohammad Amin Kazemian out for 93 days
93 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zob Ahan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Rahman Jafari takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Reza Sharifi Basir is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Ehsan Pahlevan 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 Zob Ahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Zob Ahan
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match5 Aug 2028
The drought breaks for Zob Ahan
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Esteghlal Khuzestan were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings7 Aug 2028
Rahman Jafari in the eights
A performance of 9.45 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match5 Aug 2028
Zob Ahan find a way past Esteghlal Khuzestan
Esteghlal Khuzestan made Zob Ahan work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market7 Aug 2028
Zob Ahan promote Hossein Vafaei from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hossein Vafaei 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.
In brief
- Market One of our own: Mohammad Ebrahimi joins the Zob Ahan first team
- Market Zob Ahan promote Ahmad Nekounam from within
- Market Ali Karimi steps up from the Zob Ahan academy