Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Jazira will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.71 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 Jazira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al Jazira and Al Ahli in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al Jazira will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Al Jazira had all but put away. Al Ain will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Jazira will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mamadou Coulibaly 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Mohamed Abdulrahman could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Abdalla Ramadan
Looking aheadA test against the best for Al Jazira
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fahad Juma is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdalla Ramadan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Jazira have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 Jazira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
A performance of 8.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Malcom was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
Something was said to Malcom and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Kristjan Asllani 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 Milson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mohamed Abdulrahman after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Al Shabab? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Jazira know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mamadou Coulibaly provided it, and the 8.58 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Malcom provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mohamed Hassan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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 Jazira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Jazira can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Al Jazira had all but put away. Baniyas will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
The dugoutManuel Lanzini is still being punished for one mistake
Successful dribbles: 36. 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
8.06. 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mohamed Abdulrahman kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
$2.2M was the most the club would pay and Al Dhafra were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Salem Hussain 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. Walid Al Bloushi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Minute 89, against Al Wasl, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Al Jazira have gone to Al Dhafra with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The deal that would have taken Bruno to ES Mostaganem has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Al Jazira with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Al Jazira until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
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 Jazira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Malcom had Al Jazira level again within 3 minutes, and Al Nasr never got to play with a lead at all.
6 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
436 appearances across 22 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The offer from Persepolis for Manuel Lanzini 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 phone has started ringing about Nabil Fekir again, and this time the name on the line is Persepolis. Al Jazira are listening politely and promising nothing.
Malcom 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 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 Jazira hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.