“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Al-Faisaly, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed with Hajer and then the doctor spoke. Al-Faisaly have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
The offer went to Al-Ettifaq 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Jeel have kept their man, and Al-Faisaly go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Yousef Al-Shammari had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
$350.0K on the table at Al-Ra'ed. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The name of Mohammed Al-Shanqiti has come up in conversations Al-Faisaly were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 Ibrahima N'Diaye is on it.
A new face in his position, and Theo Bongonda suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Al-Faisaly have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
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.
Nobody at Al-Faisaly 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ibrahima N'Diaye has written the date down.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Yaseen Barnawi’s negotiating for 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 Yousef Al-Shammari is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jean Charles Ahoua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al-Faisaly. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Al-Faisaly, and it is not being withdrawn.
Theo Bongonda 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Al-Faisaly has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Abdullah Al-Rashidi has moved up it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al-Faisaly. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yael Trepy 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 Al-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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 Munif Doshi is on it.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
“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-Faisaly heard it as anything else.
Theo Bongonda 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.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Seck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Al-Faisaly 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.
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.
Theo Bongonda scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Al-Ittihad, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Yael Trepy 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.
Raphael Silva was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Al-Ittihad held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Al-Faisaly answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al-Faisaly people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Al-Qadisiyah for Ibrahima N'Diaye 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.
1 for Raphael Silva, marked 6.79, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Al-Ra'ed paid $360.0K and Al-Faisaly took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yael Trepy 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.
Al-Faisaly asked and Al-Ittihad said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Al-Fateh kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Al-Faisaly will be asked about the last half hour all week.
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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Seck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Raphael Silva will call it something else in private.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The offer from Al-Khaleej for Yousef Al-Shammari 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.
Theo Bongonda 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 name of Fahad Al-Dossari has come up in conversations Al-Faisaly were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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-Faisaly are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Raphael Silva
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Andrei Girotto's mistake
A brace, and Jaime Seoane takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jaime Seoane provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Theo Bongonda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al-Faisaly and Al-Diriyah in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Faisaly lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al-Faisaly people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 16 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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-Faisaly hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Theo Bongonda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Faisaly can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yael Trepy 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rayan Fallatah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al-Faisaly the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Al-Taawoun paid $450.0K and Al-Faisaly took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Al-Saudi Al-Watani paid $34.0K and Al-Faisaly took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Ahli have kept their man, and Al-Faisaly go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Al-Faisaly have made the call to Como. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad21 Jun 2027
5 new faces, and Al-Faisaly 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.
In brief
SquadYael Trepy falls out with a teammate over standards
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Hajer moved on, Mohammed Al-Hasawi reports back to Al-Faisaly, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Ahmed Al-Mhemaid again, and this time the name on the line is Al-Taawoun. Al-Faisaly are listening politely and promising nothing.
At 19 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cristian Carrara. 1‑0 against Al-Khaleej, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Seck 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ayman Fallatah provided it, and the 8.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7.77, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jaime Seoane wants continental football; whether Al-Faisaly can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ayman Fallatah has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Hajer spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
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.
Marked 8.22 — 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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrei Girotto's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Al-Faisaly told Luvannor something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Al-Faisaly has been clear about where Yaseen Barnawi stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Faisaly have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
Half the programme played, position 8, 16 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdulrahman Al-Sherif was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mohammed Al-Aqeel’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al-Faisaly needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Wilfried Eza has written the date down.
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 7.83 for the rest of it.
The offer from Hajer for Mohammed Al-Shanqiti 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Al-Faisaly can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The deal with Napoli is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Raphael Silva was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Seck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.