Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saba, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milad Jahanbakhsh 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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saba, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Position 3, 15 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Morteza Azmoun 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Foolad? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Masoud Gholizadeh 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Shots: 7. 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Saba training over how hard people work
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.
Mohammad Reza Bordbar 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.
“I did not go to Tractor to sit and watch. I want to come back to Saba and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Saba are still learning each other
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.
0‑1 against Tractor, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 27 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
“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 Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Masoud Gholizadeh 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 deal that would have taken Vouria Khodadad to Saipa has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Saba with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
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.
Masoud Yazdani had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Rah Ahan were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.65 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ali Khodadad was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Masoud Gholizadeh 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. Milad Jahanbakhsh 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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Esteghlal Ahvaz? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Marked 5.67. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Saba scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Masoud Yazdani provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ali Kamali has just signed for Saba, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.12 — 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.
Masoud Gholizadeh 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.
1 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Khodadad 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.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
In brief
The terracesSaba supporters have found a favourite in Majid Karimi