Marked for Fahad Al Suwaidi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Feb 2027
Al Shaab refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Henrique Amaral, 33, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market15 Feb 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Shaab is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom15 Feb 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Saeed Al Hashmi has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Henrique Amaral 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Danilo Catalano 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Henrique Amaral. 1‑0 against Emirates Club, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Majed Al Suwaidi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Al Shaab 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Nov 2026
Danilo Catalano 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 ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match14 Nov 2026
Emirates Club made Al Shaab work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Marked 7.93 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Al Shaab had the best player on the pitch.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Walid Khalfan'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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Nobody at Al Shaab 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
7.47, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Al Shaab had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Rashid Khalfan
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Danilo Catalano has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Match26 Sep 2026
Point won or two lost for Al Shaab?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Al Ain? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Sharjah moved on, Walid Al Naqbi reports back to Al Shaab, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market7 Sep 2026
Al Jazira 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Danilo Catalano, 33, rolls back the years — 8.35
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.35 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al Shaab can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mahmoud Al Hammadi is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al Shaab heard it as anything else.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Walid Al Naqbi 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Graduation day at Al Shaab
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.