Marked for Hamad Mohammad
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
A brace, and Ezequiel Berriel takes the afternoon — 8.15
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ezequiel Berriel provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Tibor Halilović 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.
Match23 Sep 2028
A 2‑0 win over Esteghlal Ahvaz, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad25 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Hamad Mohammad
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad25 Sep 2028
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces11 Sep 2028
The mood at Naft Tehran 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Erfan Najjari: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match6 Sep 2028
Zob Ahan are out and Naft Tehran go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match9 Sep 2028
7 matches without a win for Naft Tehran
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Naft Tehran are no longer polite ones.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Hamad Mohammad 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Hasan Jafari 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.
Match9 Sep 2028
1‑2 to Saipa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hasan Jafari, and the manager let it.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A performance of 8.36 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Sep 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match2 Sep 2028
No end in sight to Naft Tehran's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Naft Tehran has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamad Mohammad and Naft Tehran agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Tibor Halilović 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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at Naft Tehran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hasan Jafari 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.
Match2 Sep 2028
Karim Hosseini scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Esteghlal, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The terraces4 Sep 2028
At 22 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 ratings4 Sep 2028
Marked 8.13 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
The one thing Friday Ubong could not do
Shots: 5, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces14 Aug 2028
The mood at Naft Tehran 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.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
A first appearance Saman Beiranvand will want to forget — 5.31
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.31, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ali Kamali is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Aug 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 Naft Tehran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Aug 2028
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Hasan Jafari 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
0‑2 to Zob Ahan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The terraces14 Aug 2028
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Jul 2028
Only the photograph left for Eduardo Acosta
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eduardo Acosta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Naft Tehran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Morten Trøen is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad24 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 Naft Tehran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces17 Jul 2028
The mood at Naft Tehran 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.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
Pressure builds in the Naft Tehran boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market17 Jul 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.
Market17 Jul 2028
Only the photograph left for Nahuel Méndez
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nahuel Méndez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Naft Tehran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Ali Kamali 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.
Squad17 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 Naft Tehran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Alireza Ebrahimi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Hamad Mohammad 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Ali Kamali 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.
Market5 Jun 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Ali Al-Dhanhani has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Naft Tehran.
Market5 Jun 2028
Morten Trøen is 20, and Naft Tehran have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yousef Vakia, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Jun 2028
The manager's exit leaves Friday Ubong exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Friday Ubong is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
$2.0M taken back off the Naft Tehran table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Apr 2028
A fracture rules Akbar Safarzadeh out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Naft Tehran will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match17 Apr 2028
31 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Alireza Haghighi 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
Uneasy
Squad6 Mar 2028
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.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Alireza Ebrahimi has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Naft Tehran can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market6 Mar 2028
Eduardo Acosta has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Naft Tehran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Tibor Halilović 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
The manager makes an example of Hamad Mohammad
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Feb 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Feb 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Irfan Jaya
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Naft Tehran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match21 Feb 2028
28 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
No sign of nerves from Mehrab Badele at 19 — 7.81
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mehrab Badele did not need any: 7.81, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad21 Feb 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
A chastening introduction for Ashkan Ebrahimi — 5.78
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.78 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Tibor Halilović 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.
Match19 Feb 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mehrab Badele. 2‑1 against Sepahan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces21 Feb 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Mehrab Badele has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Nov 2027
Ebraheim Khameis damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Pablo Marí, 34, rolls back the years — 9.32
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.32 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 26 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad8 Nov 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jul 2027
Ebraheim Khameis damages knee ligaments — 154 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 154 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
Ali Saqr hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Emirates Club can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom12 Jul 2027
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Diogo Capitão 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Too much change too quickly at Emirates Club
6 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hamad Mohammad, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Faisal Al Hammadi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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 Emirates Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Emirates Club may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adli Mohamed is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Diogo Capitão 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Fahad Rashed 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 Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
A fracture rules Ahmed Ibrahim out for 42 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Emirates Club will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad10 May 2027
Erik 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 Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Manuel Granados 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
Steady
Squad15 Mar 2027
Nawaf Al-Aqidi 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.
Boardroom15 Mar 2027
14 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Emirates Club training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erik 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces1 Mar 2027
The mood at Emirates Club 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.
Match27 Feb 2027
Salvador Negrete wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Salvador Negrete found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Dibba went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
No sign of nerves from Salvador Negrete at 20 — 7.60
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Salvador Negrete did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Omar Abdulrahman for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Emirates Club will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Nawaf Al-Aqidi 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.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match27 Feb 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Salvador Negrete’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Emirates Club.
The terraces1 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Salvador Negrete has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market8 Feb 2027
“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 Emirates Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Erik 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 Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Diogo Capitão 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
No hiding place for Jardel
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jardel, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Leandrinho named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Leandrinho is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Match6 Feb 2027
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Al Shabab came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Emirates Club pull $328.9K 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.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
12 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Dec 2026
Position 13, 11 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Emirates Club may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match26 Dec 2026
4 matches without a win for Emirates Club
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Emirates Club are no longer polite ones.
Match26 Dec 2026
Fabinho among the goals in a wild afternoon
6 goals in one match, Fabinho on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Emirates Club and Al Wasl.
Match26 Dec 2026
Fabinho scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑4 to Al Wasl, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Saud Al-Hosani
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Diogo Capitão 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Ebraheim Khameis 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Nov 2026
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Emirates Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Emirates Club can pretend not to have heard.
Match7 Nov 2026
6 matches without a win for Emirates Club
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Emirates Club are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match7 Nov 2026
Al Shabab left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.