Marked for Arshia Sarshogh
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Apr 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Sharjah, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Sharjah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charles Pickel 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Sharjah
Kodjo Laba and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Sharjah know it.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Arshia Sarshogh
“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.
Market12 Apr 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Luan Pereira’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
João Victor knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and João Victor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Sharjah will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Kodjo Laba has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kodjo Laba has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Market1 Feb 2027
The chase for Abdullah Hassan ended with $6.6M changing hands and Al Shabab out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Match30 Jan 2027
The run is over for Sharjah
12 matches without defeat, and then Al Jazira. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Window shuts: 4 in, 2 out at Sharjah
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Luan Pereira 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 Sharjah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
The town asked, and Sharjah paid $6.6M
Abdullah Hassan was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $6.6M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Charles Pickel 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.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Sharjah asked and Al Wasl said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market4 Jan 2027
Al Jazira come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sharjah did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Leandrinho, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.00, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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.
Match2 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Sharjah
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Leandrinho is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match2 Jan 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Sharjah. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Firas Ben Larbi 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Sharjah asked and Al Wahda said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match14 Oct 2026
The small margins put Sharjah out
Out, 0‑0 to Al Dhafra, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Sharjah
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Sharjah are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Feta Fetai is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Charles Pickel 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
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sharjah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
From twelve yards, and Adel Taarabt misses
A penalty is the one moment in football with nowhere to hide, and he did not score it. The walk back was long and the week will be longer.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Léo Azevedo
“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
Market17 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Abdalla Ghanim had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Sharjah offered $2.9M; Al Ahli said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al Fujairah come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sharjah did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al Ain is saying, and nobody at Sharjah is enjoying the guessing.
Market17 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Kodjo Laba 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Sharjah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Firas Ben Larbi 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Sharjah will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sultan Al-Saadi, and the manager let it.