Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Wahda know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Wahda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al Wahda, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Dušan Tadić has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Al Wahda know, and have known for weeks.
Asked to play a role that is not his, or taken off before the hour once too often — Dušan Tadić has let it be known that he does not like the way Al Wahda are using him. Managers hear this long before the press does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Wahda know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Al Wahda that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.