“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sepahan can pretend not to have heard.
Sepahan asked and Esteghlal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kaveh Rezaei 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.
Saleh Hardani was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.1M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Sepahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hadi Mohammadi 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.
The dugoutKaveh Rezaei asks for a word with the manager
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The Sepahan Sentinel
24 Aug 2026
From our football correspondentTriumph
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$2.1M settles it between the clubs for Saleh Hardani
Esteghlal have accepted the money. What Sepahan do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kasra Taheri did not need any: 8.29, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Sepahan offered $180.0K; Malavan said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Sepahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Alves 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sepahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Nasr have kept their man, and Sepahan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $199.8K — a club that wants Alireza Ramezani enough to be asked twice.
Sepahan have gone to Malavan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sepahan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and Esteghlal were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Esteghlal Ahvaz will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Sepahan were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 9.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tractor have kept their man, and Sepahan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.26 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $8.0M — a club that wants Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh enough to be asked twice.
$180.0K 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.
Kaveh Rezaei 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.
Add another name to the list: Esteghlal have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mohammad Reza Bordbar. The answer from Sepahan has not changed — yet.
Kasra Taheri, 20, 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 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Add another name to the list: Persepolis have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aria Yousefi. The answer from Sepahan has not changed — yet.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
2 academy players handed senior numbers at Sepahan
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Sepahan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Alves 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.