Marked for Mohammed Abdulrahman
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
270% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Shoulla
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Al-Diriyah left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.37, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Joanderson: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Shoulla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
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-Shoulla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Dec 2026
Three points for Al-Shoulla, 3‑2 the final word against Al-Nahda in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Al-Shoulla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Victor Peter 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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.41 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Dec 2026
“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-Shoulla, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
An order from above at Al-Shoulla: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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-Shoulla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Al-Shoulla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Al-Fayha left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Óscar Opazo breaks a bone — 40 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match7 Nov 2026
Whatever happens, Al-Ahli do not lose
11 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Francisco Trincão 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
“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-Ahli heard it as anything else.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Merih Demiral
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
64 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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-Shoulla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Al-Shoulla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market2 Nov 2026
“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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 254% of everything Al-Shoulla earn
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A brace, and Claudio Díaz takes the afternoon — 8.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Claudio Díaz provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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-Shoulla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ohod made Al-Shoulla work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Al-Shoulla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Al-Shoulla
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Al-Shoulla can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad19 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Al-Shoulla 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad12 Oct 2026
Óscar Opazo breaks a bone — 74 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 74 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.21, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match10 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Al-Ahli right now
3 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Galeno 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduard Spertsyan wants continental football; whether Al-Ahli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match10 Oct 2026
Three points for Al-Ahli, 2‑0 the final word against Hajer in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Hasan Jafari 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Feras Al-Brikan
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Raghdan Matri: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Shoulla have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
113 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Sep 2026
Al-Nahda are out and Al-Shoulla go through, 4‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
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 7.09 for the rest of it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Al-Shoulla — 7.81
1 for Younes Abdulwahed, marked 7.81, 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
46 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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-Shoulla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al-Shoulla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.09 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Majed Al-Mutairi
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shoulla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Claudio Díaz, 39, rolls back the years — 7.90
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
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 7.33 for the rest of it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The Al-Shoulla board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Mohammed Abdulrahman 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nidhal Ben Salem 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jorge Samaniego. 2‑0 against Al-Nahda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Jorge Samaniego
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
“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-Ahli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ivan Toney
“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.
Match29 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Al-Khaleej, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Hasan Jafari 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Market31 Aug 2026
The Galeno talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al-Ahli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market31 Aug 2026
Al-Ahli have let the market know Feras Al-Brikan can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
Al-Ahli say no — this time
The offer from Krasnodar for Ivan Toney 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Galeno in a row with a teammate
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Al-Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franck Kessié 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Three points for Al-Ahli, 1‑0 the final word against Al-Taawoun in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market24 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Al-Ahli will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Ivan Toney
7.75, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Al-Ahli had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad24 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Al-Hazem come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al-Ahli did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Roger Ibañez in a row with a teammate
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
Eduard Spertsyan wants to know where this is going
“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-Ahli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Eduard Spertsyan and Al-Ahli agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Al-Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduard Spertsyan 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
In brief
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Market
Damac are about to pick up the phone
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Market
Yazan Madani is free to find somewhere else