$15.7M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Esteghlal lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Esteghlal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The terraces25 Jun 2029
Supporters turn on the $15.7M sale of Jason Knight
He is going to Persepolis, the club has $15.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The deal with Zob Ahan is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Hajduk Split keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The shirt still fits. Mohammad Alinejad is back at Esteghlal, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Saman Fallah 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.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Esteghlal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Saeid Saharkhizan had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Esteghlal will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Esteghlal people have started saying his name in the past tense.
He is going to Persepolis, the club has $8.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The phone has started ringing about Jason Knight again, and this time the name on the line is Persepolis. Esteghlal are listening politely and promising nothing.
Zob Ahan have accepted the money. What Esteghlal do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
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 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zob Ahan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zob Ahan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ehsan Pahlevan 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.
$100.0K on the table at Foolad. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
32 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Esteghlal will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Esteghlal until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
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 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 goals and a season average of 7.29 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Ehsan Yazdani 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 offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
Masoud Khodadad, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 Zob Ahan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Zob Ahan close the window on a squad of their own making
0 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Esteghlal moved on, Mohammad Alinejad reports back to Zob Ahan, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Zob Ahan had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Al-Ahli, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milad Zakipour was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Frosinone have kept their man, and Zob Ahan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Esteghlal will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Esteghlal have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Esteghlal and Zob Ahan have settled on $94.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The chase for Nima Entezari ended with $670.0K changing hands and Tractor out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Jason Knight 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.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Ehsan Yazdani 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.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zob Ahan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
111 minutes played. Alireza Ramezani found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Gostaresh Foulad went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The deal that would have taken Mohammad Ghoreishi to Sepahan has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Zob Ahan with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ehsan Mohammadi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zob Ahan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Hasan Shoushtari 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.
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.
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zob Ahan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Zob Ahan, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al-Ittihad keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Zob Ahan asked and Queens Park Rangers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
20 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.
The offer went to Saba this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$800.0K on the table at Esteghlal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Hasan Shoushtari 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 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Nemanja Trifunović 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.
Squad15 May 2028
Jehad Thikri 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mohammad Alinejad is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zob Ahan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Zob Ahan would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Zob Ahan that is a harder question to answer.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Mohammad Javad Mohammadi has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
In brief
BoardroomThe Zob Ahan production line keeps running
Nemanja Trifunović 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Zob Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jehad Thikri 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zob Ahan, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zob Ahan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Adib Zarei has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zob Ahan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Zob Ahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jehad Thikri 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.
Nobody at Zob Ahan will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.