Marked for Khalid Al Suwaidi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Jun 2027
Every point is an argument now for Al Shaab
Position 12 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market7 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Hassan Obaid
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hassan Obaid will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al Shaab the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Khalid Al Suwaidi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Walid Al Shamsi 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bandar Al Naqbi 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Majed Al Kamali and Al Shaab agree another 4 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Mar 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Al Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shaab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Khalid Al Suwaidi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces4 Jan 2027
The mood at Al Shaab has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market4 Jan 2027
Al Shaab say no — this time
The offer from Al Nasr for Gabriel Aguirre 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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Al Shaab
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match2 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Al Shaab
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.
Match2 Jan 2027
The goals have deserted Al Shaab
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Al Shaab can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Khalid Al Suwaidi is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Gabriel Aguirre 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
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Rashid Mabkhout at 21 — 7.78
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rashid Mabkhout did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match26 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Al Shaab's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al Shaab has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Khalid Al Suwaidi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
A bad afternoon for Al Shaab against Al Ain
1‑3 to Al Ain, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market28 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rashid Mabkhout signs something — a contract at Al Shaab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
5.79. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shaab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market31 Aug 2026
So close: Omar Hassan’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Al Shabab moved on, Omar Hassan reports back to Al Shaab, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market31 Aug 2026
Dibba come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al Shaab did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Khalid Al Suwaidi is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market31 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Fenerbahce pay $17.0M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market10 Aug 2026
Al-Taawoun come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al Shaab did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Omar Hassan has come up in conversations Al Shaab were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Bandar Al Naqbi and Al Shaab agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mahmoud Al Suwaidi 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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.