Marked for Mayed Al-Kaabi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Mar 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sharjah may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Luan Pereira 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.
Market26 Mar 2029
Mayed Al-Kaabi has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sharjah they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings26 Feb 2029
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Feb 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sharjah may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings26 Feb 2029
A defender's goal wins it for Sharjah — 7.56
1 for Mats Bångsbo, marked 7.56, 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.
Market26 Feb 2029
Only the photograph left for Mayed Al-Kaabi
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mayed Al-Kaabi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sharjah the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Ali Al Junaibi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Sharjah have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Cho Yu-Min gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings26 Feb 2029
Ninety minutes of Luan Pereira at his very best
Marked 8.11. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Sharjah.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Mohammed Abbas 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.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Abdulla Al-Karbi 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market29 Jan 2029
Sharjah say no — this time
The offer from Saba for Leandrinho was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market29 Jan 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sharjah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market29 Jan 2029
Erik wants more than Sharjah are offering
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Sharjah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Gallo 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.
Match27 Jan 2029
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Mohammed Abbas 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.
Squad29 Jan 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Sharjah know it.
Player ratings29 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Adel Al-Hosani dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Jan 2029
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.
Market15 Jan 2029
“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 Sharjah, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Jan 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Shaheen Abdulrahman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sharjah the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Caio Lucas 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.
Player ratings15 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Jan 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Igor Coronado, and the manager let it.
Market15 Jan 2029
Al Fujairah are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Sharjah will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Loan watch15 Jan 2029
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Sharjah, and 3 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
Match13 Jan 2029
It needed Agustín Gallo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Al Shabab, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Nov 2027
Mayed Al-Kaabi damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Match27 Nov 2027
0‑3 to Al Nasr, 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.
Market29 Nov 2027
Maro Katinić hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sharjah can pretend not to have heard.
Match27 Nov 2027
5 matches without a win for Sharjah
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Sharjah are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Caio Lucas 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 Sharjah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Agustín Gallo 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.
Match27 Nov 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Sharjah
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad29 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Khaled Ebraheim
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Nov 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mayed Al-Kaabi
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sharjah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces22 Nov 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 32 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Squad22 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sharjah may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match20 Nov 2027
The wait goes on for Sharjah
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market22 Nov 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match20 Nov 2027
A bad afternoon for Sharjah against Al Ahli
2‑3 to Al Ahli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Erik 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Igor Coronado
“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 ratings22 Nov 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.17, and no argument anywhere in the ground.