Chouaib El Maftoul 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.
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.
“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; Al-Saudi Al-Watani are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdulla Mohammed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Mohammed Al-Muhaysh may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Al-Saudi Al-Watani could ask drops and the wages Omar Al-Suhaimi can ask rise.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Chouaib El Maftoul 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.
0‑3 to Hajer, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Saudi Al-Watani they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Al-Saudi Al-Watani, and it is not being withdrawn.
Diyorjon Turopov 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.
Faisal Al-Shamrani 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.
Position 16, 11 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Saudi Al-Watani can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
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 1‑2 Turki Al-Ghamdi left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Leo Guntara 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sanele Sikhosana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Al-Shoulla next, and one man in the Al-Saudi Al-Watani dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al-Saudi Al-Watani know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chouaib El Maftoul and Al-Saudi Al-Watani agree another 2 years.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Al-Saudi Al-Watani told Mohammed Al-Muhaysh something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leandro Acuña was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Leo Guntara is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Chouaib El Maftoul 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdulla Mohammed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Faisal Al-Shamrani’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al-Saudi Al-Watani needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Al-Saudi Al-Watani the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Abdulrahman Al-Dhafeeri 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.
“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; Al-Saudi Al-Watani are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdulrahman Al-Dhafeeri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.