Saba U20

23 Aug 2026
Sunday
Process
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3 Edition

The Saba Sentinel

17 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match15 Aug 2026

Saba taken apart

0‑3 to Tractor, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.

Squad17 Aug 2026

A one-man rearguard from Nima Mirzazad

There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.

Squad17 Aug 2026

Saba lose Saeid Aghaei

67 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.

Squad17 Aug 2026

A falling-out at Saba

Hamed Pakdel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Transfer targets17 Aug 2026

Rah Ahan tell Saba: Morteza Khodadad is not for sale

The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.

The dugout17 Aug 2026

No hiding place for Saeid Aghaei

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saeid Aghaei, and the manager let it.

Boardroom17 Aug 2026

Nobody left the Saba dressing room in a hurry

The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.

Squad17 Aug 2026

Saba are still strangers to each other

20 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.

The dugout17 Aug 2026

Sardar Jahanbakhsh answers for it

“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.

In brief

Back issues
2 Edition

The Saba Sentinel

10 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Transfer targets10 Aug 2026

The paperwork begins on Taha Alemi

A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Saba have done the hard part with Sepahan, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.

Squad10 Aug 2026

Tempers go at Saba

Hamed Pakdel 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.

Squad10 Aug 2026

Amir Mohammad Panahi 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.

Transfer targets10 Aug 2026

Sepahan tell Saba: Ali Karimi is not for sale

The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.

Match8 Aug 2026

A bad afternoon for Saba against Saipa

1‑2 to Saipa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.

Market10 Aug 2026

Kaveh Hosseini steps up from the Saba academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Kaveh Hosseini has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

Market10 Aug 2026

Saba promote Vahid Ebrahimi from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vahid Ebrahimi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Market10 Aug 2026

Alireza Dejagah steps up from the Saba academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alireza Dejagah has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

Market10 Aug 2026

Ramin Karimi steps up from the Saba academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ramin Karimi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

In brief

1 Edition

The Saba Sentinel

3 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Squad3 Aug 2026

A day Ofek Peretz will not forget

7 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.

Match1 Aug 2026

No mercy from Saba

Naft Tehran will want this one forgotten quickly: 12‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Saba were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.

Squad3 Aug 2026

A day Daniel Darzi will not forget

3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.

Player ratings3 Aug 2026

Both of them Ofer Gelbard's — 7.74

2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 7.74, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.

Player ratings3 Aug 2026

Daniel Darzi, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.56

A mark of 8.56 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Squad3 Aug 2026

Vahid Asgarpour arrives at the club he grew up with

Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Vahid Asgarpour has, at Saba, and the first month will show what that does to a man.

Squad3 Aug 2026

Hamed Pakdel 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 Saba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match1 Aug 2026

Nobody could stop scoring

12 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Saba and Naft Tehran in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.

Boardroom3 Aug 2026

5 academy players handed senior numbers at Saba

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.

In brief