Junior Mendieta 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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Mojtaba Moghtadaei’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Junior Mendieta 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Naft Tehran pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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-Ettifaq this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Ettifaq have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Álvaro Medrán 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.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Al-Ettifaq will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Álvaro Medrán 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.
19 clean sheets across a season, and the one award on the pitch nobody else is eligible for. Most keepers get through a whole career without a year like it.
In brief
Boardroom291% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Ettifaq
Álvaro Medrán 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al-Ettifaq know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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-Ettifaq this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.08 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Al-Ettifaq know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Abdullah Al-Dossary is a Al-Ettifaq player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Getting past Marek Rodák has become the hardest job in the division
14 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.