1 for Aschraf El Mahdioui, marked 7.98, 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.
Oscar 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.
He is 22 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.
Marked 8.05 — 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 3‑1, Fahad Al-Rashid could afford to be generous.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
A mark of 7.86 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al-Taawoun training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aschraf El Mahdioui 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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Al-Khaleej were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Level with 99 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Al-Taawoun had all but put away. Al-Riyadh will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Najran the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Al-Taawoun will enjoy reviewing.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Al-Saudi Al-Watani waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Al-Taawoun is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Victor Hugo delivers — 7.93
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Victor Hugo scored, was marked 7.93, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Muteb Al-Mufarrij 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.
Add another name to the list: Al-Njoom have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Abdulmalik Al-Marwani. The answer from Al-Taawoun has not changed — yet.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 new faces, and Al-Taawoun 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Liverpool Montevideo is saying, and nobody at Al-Taawoun is enjoying the guessing.
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-Taawoun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Al-Taawoun have gone to Al-Shabab 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.
Al-Taawoun have gone to Al-Ettifaq 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 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.