The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Al Ain have lost him in all but the paperwork.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.4M has been paid because Mohammad Ghorbani is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahli have kept their man, and Al Ain go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.1M — a club that wants Oumar Traoré enough to be asked twice.
Ramy Rabia 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 not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Al Ain are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al Wahda people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Al Wahda, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Al Shabab for Oumarou Diadje 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.1M — a club that wants Oumar Traoré enough to be asked twice.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Al Wahda would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
SquadDušan Tadić is training like a man with a point to make
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Ain lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have shaken hands with Al Wahda; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dibba waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Al Ain is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kouamé Autonne had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
He is going to MC Alger, the club has $9.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
$2.9M was the most the club would pay and Al Shabab 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahli have kept their man, and Al Ain go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The fee is $640.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Al Nasr drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Facundo Kruspzky 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 phone has started ringing about Oumarou Diadje again, and this time the name on the line is Al Shabab. Al Wahda are listening politely and promising nothing.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Al Ain will make the call about Mohammad Ghorbani this week. Al Wahda have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad17 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Al Wahda 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Montenegro 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Al Wahda has been clear about where Zayed Ahmed stands, which is more than many ever get.
11 seasons and 144 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
“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 Wahda heard it as anything else.
Dušan Tadić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gerónimo Rivera 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.