Marked for Waleed Abdullah
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match24 Oct 2026
Al-Saudi Al-Watani will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Al-Diriyah were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match26 Oct 2026
Al-Diriyah refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 27 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A brace, and Darwin Núñez takes the afternoon — 8.99
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Darwin Núñez provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match24 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Al-Diriyah right now
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.16, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad26 Oct 2026
16 goals and a season average of 7.42. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match24 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Al-Diriyah. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Match24 Oct 2026
Al-Diriyah settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Al-Saudi Al-Watani spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad28 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Darwin Núñez, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Clayton Diandy at 20 — 8.09
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Clayton Diandy did not need any: 8.09, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match26 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al-Diriyah have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Berat Djimsiti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Darwin Núñez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.68. 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Three points for Al-Diriyah, 3‑1 the final word against Al-Ettifaq in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
At 20 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Al-Diriyah 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Al-Diriyah close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 9 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Al-Fayha for Abdullah Al-Dossari 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
15 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Chancel Mbemba
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Chancel Mbemba has come out of that comparison in the side, and Al-Diriyah have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Al-Diriyah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Qassem Lajami 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.