Marked for Simone Caprioli
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Al Shaab do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad19 Oct 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 ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fahad Obaid, and the manager let it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.77 on the card, and the Al Shaab support went home talking about one name.
Match17 Oct 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad19 Oct 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Market19 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shaab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
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 ratings21 Sep 2026
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match19 Sep 2026
Al Shaab make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al Shaab have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad21 Sep 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Three points for Al Shaab, 2‑1 the final word against Baniyas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Rashid Khalfan 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ismail Obaid, 35, rolls back the years — 8.83
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.83 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Dibba made Al Shaab work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market14 Sep 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Al Shaab will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad14 Sep 2026
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rashid Khalfan 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Baniyas 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
Jorge Moreno 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 Al Shaab can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Al Shaab say no — this time
The offer from Al Nasr for Walid Khalfan 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.
Market24 Aug 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Majed Hassan again, and this time the name on the line is Sharjah. Al Shaab are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad24 Aug 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Al Shaab bring in an old head
Khiry Shelton is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A season on the outside for Khiry Shelton
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Al Shaab has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Al Wahda 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al Shaab have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Majed Hassan, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Danilo Catalano, and the manager let it.
Market17 Aug 2026
Khalfan Suqrat is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Al Shaab has been clear about where Khalfan Suqrat stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
22 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hassan Al Junaibi 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Dibba have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hamdan Omar. The answer from Al Shaab has not changed — yet.