Marked for Mohammed Suhluli
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Feb 2027
The run now stands at 22, and the questions being asked around Al-Saudi Al-Watani are no longer polite ones.
Squad15 Feb 2027
14 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match15 Feb 2027
Position 16 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match13 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑5 by Al-Diriyah, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match13 Feb 2027
8 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Phiwokuhle Mjolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“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.
Boardroom15 Feb 2027
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Dec 2026
15 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al-Saudi Al-Watani has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 15 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match26 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑4 by Al-Ettifaq, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Phiwokuhle Mjolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Phiwokuhle Mjolo, and the manager let it.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Al-Saudi Al-Watani 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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑4, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Abdullah Al-Shehri 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Dec 2026
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al-Saudi Al-Watani has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Hamoud Bassam and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Match12 Dec 2026
1‑3 to Ohod, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Phiwokuhle Mjolo 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sultan Al-Anzi, and the manager let it.
Match14 Dec 2026
Position 16, 6 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Al-Saudi Al-Watani are no longer polite ones.
Match23 Nov 2026
Position 15 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad23 Nov 2026
There were 7 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Mohammed Al-Shanqiti 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Phiwokuhle Mjolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match21 Nov 2026
Damac left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Yasser Al-Hassan after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Sultan Al-Anzi
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
12 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match31 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Al-Saudi Al-Watani are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Al-Saudi Al-Watani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Phiwokuhle Mjolo 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
0‑2 to Al-Riyadh, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Every club 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 it has been tried.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Yasser Al-Hassan left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Al-Saudi Al-Watani told Ibrahim Al-Zahrani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Mohammed Suhluli
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mohammed Suhluli has come out of that comparison in the side, and Al-Saudi Al-Watani have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Oct 2026
Position 15 and 4 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match24 Oct 2026
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al-Saudi Al-Watani has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 7.70 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Hamad Al-Nemer: 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.” Al-Saudi Al-Watani have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Saudi Al-Watani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Phiwokuhle Mjolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thamsanqa Ndelu, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Something was said to Hamoud Bassam and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.16, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Mohammed Suhluli, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.86
A mark of 7.86 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Al-Saudi Al-Watani have done the hard part with Al-Hilal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Al-Saudi Al-Watani have gone to Al-Riyadh with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Abdullah Al-Shehri and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Al-Saudi Al-Watani asked and Al-Ittihad said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Al-Saudi Al-Watani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Phiwokuhle Mjolo 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al-Riyadh have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
Al-Riyadh say no — this time
The offer from Al-Shoulla for Mohammed Suhluli 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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-Riyadh heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mamadou Sylla and Al-Riyadh agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Al-Riyadh
Mamadou Sylla 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Al-Riyadh
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Trezeguet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Al-Riyadh asked and Al-Ettifaq said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Milan Borjan calls time on his country
“80 caps was 80 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 38 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Al-Riyadh.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sultan Al-Sawadi and Al-Saudi Al-Watani agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Abdullah Al-Shehri 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al-Saudi Al-Watani, another week without a signature from Mohammed Harzan.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Al-Faisaly have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Al-Riyadh: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Faisal Al-Essa is in the works
Al-Saudi Al-Watani have made the call to Al-Ittihad. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.