Marked for Majed Qasheesh
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Sep 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market3 Sep 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Najran, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings3 Sep 2035
Two goals and a mark of 8.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad3 Sep 2035
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market3 Sep 2035
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Gustavo Figueiredo reports back to Najran with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Match1 Sep 2035
The wait goes on for Najran
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.
Squad3 Sep 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Majed Qasheesh commits to Najran for another 2 years.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Tempers go at Najran
Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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.
Match1 Sep 2035
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Najran and Al-Shabab, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Squad5 Feb 2035
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
A stranger takes charge at Najran
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
Market5 Feb 2035
“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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Crisis meeting at Najran
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Squad5 Feb 2035
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.
Market5 Feb 2035
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market5 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Najran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Jan 2035
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Najran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom8 Jan 2035
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market8 Jan 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Najran can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom8 Jan 2035
The Najran board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad8 Jan 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Najran may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Majed Qasheesh, 33, rolls back the years — 8.27
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Jan 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mohammad Al-Husseini and Najran agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Tempers go at Najran
Taher Wadi 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.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Defensive actions: 22, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Oct 2034
Bandar Al-Juhani damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Boardroom30 Oct 2034
The scrutiny sharpens at Najran
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Najran is running low.
Squad30 Oct 2034
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad30 Oct 2034
A muscle injury sidelines Majed Qasheesh for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Najran will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad30 Oct 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Najran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom30 Oct 2034
Wages eat 104% of everything Najran 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.
Player ratings30 Oct 2034
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings30 Oct 2034
10 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Match28 Oct 2034
Point won or two lost for Najran?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Al-Ra'ed? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Aug 2034
Hamza Sakhi breaks a bone — 73 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market21 Aug 2034
“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 Najran, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match19 Aug 2034
5 matches without a win for Najran
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Najran are no longer polite ones.
Market21 Aug 2034
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad21 Aug 2034
Words at Najran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Taher Wadi 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.
Squad21 Aug 2034
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Najran are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad21 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Najran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Aug 2034
Majed Qasheesh was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings21 Aug 2034
Shots: 14. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Feb 2034
A fracture rules Fawaz Al-Soqoor out for 67 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Najran will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad13 Feb 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Najran may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom13 Feb 2034
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Bandar Al-Ahmari has agreed terms with Al-Wehda for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Market13 Feb 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Najran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad13 Feb 2034
Tempers go at Najran
Taher Wadi 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.
Player ratings13 Feb 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.04, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match11 Feb 2034
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Majed Qasheesh. 1‑0 against Al-Jeel, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings13 Feb 2034
One of those days for Taher Wadi
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad13 Feb 2034
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Najran are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Feb 2034
A fracture rules Fawaz Al-Soqoor out for 74 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Najran will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad6 Feb 2034
Defences have started doubling up on Meshari Al-Nemer
23 goals and a season average of 7.30 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market6 Feb 2034
“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.
Market6 Feb 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Najran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Feb 2034
“The easiest signature of my career.” Antonio Portales and Najran agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings6 Feb 2034
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad6 Feb 2034
Tempers go at Najran
Hussain Al-Zarie 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.
Match4 Feb 2034
Najran keep winning on the road
4 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match4 Feb 2034
Three points for Najran, 1‑0 the final word against Al-Ettifaq in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Jan 2034
A fracture rules Fawaz Al-Soqoor out for 102 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Najran will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 Jan 2034
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Squad9 Jan 2034
Diego Venancio: 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.” Najran have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad9 Jan 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hamza Sakhi and Najran agree another 2 years.
Match7 Jan 2034
A bad afternoon for Najran against Al-Fayha
0‑1 to Al-Fayha, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom9 Jan 2034
Nobody left the Najran dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Market9 Jan 2034
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Najran will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Market9 Jan 2034
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Player ratings9 Jan 2034
Marked 5.09, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.