The Al Dhafra Chronicle
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Fahad Saeed will not be coming to Al Dhafra
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al Shaab is saying, and nobody at Al Dhafra is enjoying the guessing.
Squad19 Jul 2027
A falling-out at Al Dhafra
Ibrahim Bayesh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Rostand Djooh 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Al Dhafra count the cost of losing Abdullah Batal
55 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Loan watch19 Jul 2027
Arielson wants to come home
“I did not go to Dibba to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Dhafra and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Al Dhafra try to borrow Soumaïla Bakayoko
Egnatia Rrogozhinë 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
No place for Tomás Parmo in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Al Dhafra are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
No hiding place for Mansoor Al-Harbi
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mansoor Al-Harbi, and the manager let it.
The terraces19 Jul 2027
The stands have heard the Jobson talk too
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Al Dhafra would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
In brief
- Market Al Dhafra borrow Tomás Parmo
- Market The stand keeps filling up for Jobson
- The dugout The manager comes out for Ibrahim Bayesh