Marked for Ehsan Ghoddos
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Jul 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos 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.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Adham Seha: 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.” Foolad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Ali Kolahkaj 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 Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom13 Jul 2037
Pressure builds in the Foolad boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad13 Jul 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos 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.
Squad13 Jul 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces6 Jul 2037
Anger at Foolad spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos 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.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market6 Jul 2037
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Foolad have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market6 Jul 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Foolad can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Vouria Azmoun falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Jun 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Milad Karimi is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Jun 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 50 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Tempers go at Foolad
Ali Kolahkaj 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Jun 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 57 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
Boardroom15 Jun 2037
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Foolad
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces8 Jun 2037
Anger at Foolad spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 64 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
Boardroom8 Jun 2037
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.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad8 Jun 2037
240 appearances across 10 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Foolad know what they have.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Vouria Azmoun in trouble away from the ground
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Boardroom8 Jun 2037
Foolad pull $772.4K back off the table
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
Market8 Jun 2037
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mohammad Amin Hosseini’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market8 Jun 2037
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Jens Raven arrives at Foolad with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Jun 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 71 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 71 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.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Milad Karimi is the young player of the season
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 20-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 May 2037
Ehsan Ghoddos damages knee ligaments — 78 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 78 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.
Squad25 May 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 May 2037
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Dec 2036
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
Squad8 Dec 2036
A fracture rules Ehsan Ghoddos out for 102 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.
Match6 Dec 2036
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Siah Jamegan spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings8 Dec 2036
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.86 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Dec 2036
Ali Kolahkaj 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 Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Dec 2036
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammad Amin Hosseini and Foolad agree another 4 years.
Match6 Dec 2036
Siah Jamegan made Foolad work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces8 Dec 2036
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings8 Dec 2036
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.62, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
In brief
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Player ratings
Ivan Nikin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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Player ratings
Nobody could get near Ashkan Dejagah
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Boardroom
$772.4K taken back off the Foolad table
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Dec 2036
The words a physio says slowly. 71 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.
Squad1 Dec 2036
A fracture rules Ehsan Ghoddos out for 109 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.
Boardroom1 Dec 2036
Pressure builds in the Foolad boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings1 Dec 2036
Milad Karimi, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.00
A mark of 8.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad1 Dec 2036
Tempers go at Foolad
Ali Kolahkaj 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.
Squad1 Dec 2036
Vouria Azmoun falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings1 Dec 2036
Shots: 13, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Match29 Nov 2036
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings1 Dec 2036
Ivan Nikin runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Nov 2036
The words a physio says slowly. 78 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 terraces24 Nov 2036
The mood at Foolad has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad24 Nov 2036
A fracture rules Ehsan Ghoddos out for 116 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.
Squad24 Nov 2036
A one-man rearguard from Saeid Karimi
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match22 Nov 2036
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Milad Karimi, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.41
A mark of 8.41 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Age has not caught Matheus Costa yet — 8.84
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad24 Nov 2036
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Foolad know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Ninety minutes of Ashkan Dejagah at his very best
Marked 9.12. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Foolad.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Nov 2036
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
Squad17 Nov 2036
A fracture rules Ehsan Ghoddos out for 123 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.
Match15 Nov 2036
The wait goes on for Foolad
7 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.
Squad17 Nov 2036
Tempers go at Foolad
Ali Kolahkaj 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.
Match15 Nov 2036
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Nov 2036
Matheus Costa falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings17 Nov 2036
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings17 Nov 2036
Shots: 13, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Market17 Nov 2036
The Ali Kolahkaj talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Foolad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Nov 2036
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Squad10 Nov 2036
A fracture rules Ehsan Ghoddos out for 130 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.
Player ratings10 Nov 2036
A brace, and Ali Kolahkaj takes the afternoon — 8.36
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ali Kolahkaj provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match8 Nov 2036
6 matches without a win for Foolad
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Foolad are no longer polite ones.
Squad10 Nov 2036
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Foolad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 Nov 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Nov 2036
Ali Kolahkaj among the goals in a wild afternoon
6 goals in one match, Ali Kolahkaj on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Foolad and Tractor.
Match8 Nov 2036
A bad afternoon for Foolad against Tractor
2‑4 to Tractor, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings10 Nov 2036
5.10 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.