The Al-Taawoun Chronicle
Squad18 Jan 2027
Musa Barrow damages knee ligaments — 92 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Market18 Jan 2027
Al-Wehda come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al-Taawoun did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match16 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Al-Taawoun
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match16 Jan 2027
The goals have deserted Al-Taawoun
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Al-Taawoun can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Marin Petkov runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Victor Hugo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Bassam Al-Hurayji dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Al-Taawoun and Al-Fateh cancel each other out
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Al-Fateh came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
In brief
- Player ratings A defender's afternoon for Mohammed Mahzari
- Loan watch Al-Saudi Al-Watani cannot leave Hamoud Bassam out
- Loan watch Saif Rashad has made Al-Jeel’s shirt his own