Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Ghobeishavi 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Esteghlal Khuzestan can tell you which week it ends in.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mehdi Khoshbakht and Esteghlal Khuzestan agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Hamid Bouhamdan has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Mohammad Sharifi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aram Abbasi 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.
Position 10, 17 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Something was said to Alireza Homaeifard and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Esteghlal Khuzestan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Ghobeishavi 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.
A mark of 7.40, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ehsan Mohammadi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Esteghlal Khuzestan dressing room was either.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Malavan? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Hojjat Ahmadi scored in the 86th minute, Sepahan had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Esteghlal Khuzestan took the lot.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Mohammad Sharifi 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.
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.
Sepahan made Esteghlal Khuzestan work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Aram Abbasi 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Ehsan Mohammadi could afford to be generous.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Esteghlal Khuzestan has to find a result from somewhere.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Esteghlal Khuzestan is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esteghlal Khuzestan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Mohammad Sharifi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammad Reza Mehdizadeh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
19 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Ehsan Mohammadi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 36. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esteghlal Khuzestan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Ghobeishavi 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ehsan Mohammadi after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Mohammad Sharifi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Mehdizadeh 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.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Tractor in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The offer from Naft Tehran for Ahmad Savari was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Everything agreed with Persepolis, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rah Ahan is saying, and nobody at Esteghlal Khuzestan is enjoying the guessing.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Farjad Fayaz did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Esteghlal Khuzestan, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esteghlal Khuzestan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamid Bouhamdan 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Add another name to the list: Naft Tehran have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ahmad Savari. The answer from Esteghlal Khuzestan has not changed — yet.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Esteghlal Khuzestan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Esteghlal Khuzestan had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Tractor, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Hamid Bouhamdan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aram Abbasi 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Esteghlal Khuzestan have made the call to Foolad. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
7.59, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Esteghlal Khuzestan have done the hard part with Esteghlal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Foolad keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Ghobeishavi 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ashkan Nekounam is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamid Bouhamdan and Esteghlal Khuzestan agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Mohammad Sharifi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sepahan have kept their man, and Esteghlal Khuzestan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Foolad have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mehdi Khoshbakht. The answer from Esteghlal Khuzestan has not changed — yet.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Amir Dejagah is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pejman Nekounam is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.