5 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Souffian El Karouani wants continental football; whether Al-Qadisiyah can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
1 for Cameron Puertas, marked 7.97, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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 dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Turki Al-Shehri kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Aarón Martín is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Up for the corner, and Aarón Martín delivers — 7.57
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Aarón Martín scored, was marked 7.57, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Al-Qadisiyah can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Otávio 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdulaziz Al-Othman 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.
Chances created: 13. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 8 signed and 19 gone
That is the business done at Al-Qadisiyah until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al-Qadisiyah hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
“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-Qadisiyah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Al-Qadisiyah will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ali Hazazi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“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 Mirandés, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Atlético Madrid is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Barcelona keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Ali Houary 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Betis have kept their man, and Mirandés go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Filip Kujović 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.
Mirandés have made the call to Athletic Bilbao. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Mirandés told Martín Pascual something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mirandés can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 May 2027
Ali Houary 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.
Sergio Postigo 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mirandés this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Javi Hernàndez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jesús Marín was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Mirandés dressing room was either.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Martín Pascual's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jesús Marín after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.