Al Shabab go through and Al Wasl go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nicolás Giménez scored, was marked 7.98, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Marked 6.87 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Position 1, 34 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The first defeat in 7 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Al Nasr; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Fahad Al Hashmi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Al Wasl dressing room was either.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Wasl know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Renato Tapia 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Renato Tapia signs something — a contract at Al Wasl or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tahnoon Hamdan is on it.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Al Wasl that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Wasl lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Al Ahli moved on, Malek Janeer reports back to Al Wasl, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Al Wasl training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renato Tapia 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 will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brahian Palacios trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Wasl lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Wasl, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Al Wasl would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Al Wasl would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Gostaresh Foulad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer from Al Wahda for Nicolás Giménez 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Al Wasl have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $40.0K — a club that wants Mohammed Bu Sanda enough to be asked twice.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dibba have kept their man, and Al Wasl go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Wasl, and both men came out saying it was fine.