“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 The request is on a desk at Esteghlal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Munir 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
6 goals in 10 games at Al Jazira — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Esteghlal updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A new face in his position, and Rouzbeh Cheshmi suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Esteghlal have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
In brief
SquadCarlos Robles is not enjoying his job description
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.
Marked 8.99 — 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.
Marked 8.49 — 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.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rouzbeh Cheshmi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Omid Nourafkan
Ramin Rezaeian 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.