23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tractor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tractor will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Tractor and Esteghlal have settled on $4.1M. 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 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tractor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh 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.
A mark of 7.48, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Reza Beiranvand chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Tractor are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The offer from Al Nasr for Adib Zarei was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Ahmad Torabi from Padideh for $5.7M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
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 clubs have shaken hands with Padideh; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padideh have kept their man, and Tractor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Esteghlal 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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.82 for the rest of it.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.78 for the rest of it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.1M — a club that wants Saleh Hardani enough to be asked twice.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh and Tractor agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Tractor asked and Al Nasr said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
4 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mehdi Torabi 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Shahriar Jahanbakhsh 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Amir Beiranvand 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ahmad Ebrahimi 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Majid Nekounam 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.