Marked for Ayman Fallatah
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Jul 2030
Rashid Al-Mutairi damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al-Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match8 Jul 2030
Al-Ahli are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 62 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad8 Jul 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Julián Quiñones and Al-Ahli agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Galeno 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.
Market8 Jul 2030
“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-Ahli heard it as anything else.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Nov 2029
Nobody wins at Al-Ahli
23 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match14 Nov 2029
Cup progress for Al-Ahli
A 5‑0 win over Al-Nahda, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match17 Nov 2029
3‑0, and Matheus Gonçalves took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Al-Ahli tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad19 Nov 2029
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match17 Nov 2029
Nobody wants to play Al-Ahli right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Galeno 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 Nov 2029
Roger Ibañez 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.
Market19 Nov 2029
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The terraces19 Nov 2029
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ignacio Alastra has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
In brief
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Match
Najran blown away early
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Match
Al-Ahli settle it inside twenty minutes
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Player ratings
Matheus Gonçalves was on a different afternoon to everybody else
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match6 Oct 2029
Al-Ahli make home a hard place to visit
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad8 Oct 2029
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match6 Oct 2029
Al-Ahli make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al-Ahli have 5 straight wins of it.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Galeno 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.
Boardroom8 Oct 2029
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Santiago Piccioni has agreed terms with Al-Nassr for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad8 Oct 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Abolfazl Jalali commits to Al-Ahli for another 3 years.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Roger Ibañez 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.
Player ratings8 Oct 2029
Marked 9.30 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match6 Oct 2029
A 3‑1 win over Al-Ra'ed, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market3 Sep 2029
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Galeno signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Galeno commits to Al-Ahli for another 3 years.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Galeno 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 Al-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Words at Al-Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roger Ibañez 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.
Match1 Sep 2029
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 Sep 2029
The manager makes an example of Jan-Carlo Simić
“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.
Player ratings3 Sep 2029
Galeno runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
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.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
99% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Ahli
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.