4 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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Abdullah Ismail could afford to be generous.
Something was said to Salem Al-Azizi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al Wasl this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Mehdi Taremi has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Nobody at Al Wasl will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Al Wasl have no good answer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Position 2, 20 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 ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Mehdi Taremi takes the afternoon — 9.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mehdi Taremi provided it, and the 9.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Wasl hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mehdi Taremi. 3‑1 against Al Ahli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 23 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.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Mehdi Taremi takes the afternoon — 9.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mehdi Taremi provided it, and the 9.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Wasl have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al Wasl heard it as anything else.
Abdelrahman Saleh 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al Wasl can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Spartak Moscow have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dinko Horkaš. The answer from Al Wasl has not changed — yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 19 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $25.0K — a club that wants Salem Sultan enough to be asked twice.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Dibba moved on, Fousséni Silué reports back to Al Wasl, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Al Shaab paid $680.0K and Al Wasl took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Wasl hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Omar Al Hashmi 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Saeed Abdulrahman is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Al Wasl are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dinko Horkaš trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.