Achille Baldi

Defensive Midfielder - Al Shaab
18 Sep 2026
Friday
Process

Marked for Achille Baldi

5 Edition

The Al Shaab Sentinel

31 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

The knee: Majed Al Hashmi out for 123 days

123 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Shaab lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Market

Saeed Khalfan has said yes to AGMK

The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Al Shaab have lost him in all but the paperwork.

Market

Ibrahim Saeed asks to leave Al Shaab

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Market

Al Shaab turn down MC Alger for Ibrahim Saeed

The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.

Squad

37 days out for Omar Al Kamali after a fracture

A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al Shaab will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.

Market

Business is business: Youssef Abdulrahman goes

Dibba paid $600.0K and Al Shaab took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.

In brief

Back issues
4 Edition

The Al Shaab Sentinel

24 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Majed Al Hashmi damages knee ligaments — 131 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 131 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.

Market

Mohamed Mabkhout puts it in writing

“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 The request is on a desk at Al Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.

Squad

A fracture rules Omar Al Kamali out for 45 days

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.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Gerónimo Rivera

Al Shaab asked and Al Wahda said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Squad

Al Shaab count the cost of losing Mohamed Mabkhout

31 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.

Squad

Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Achille Baldi 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.

In brief

1 Edition

The Al Shaab Sentinel

3 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Market

Ismaily 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.

Squad

Achille Baldi 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 Al Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Market

Al Shabab watching Raúl Domínguez

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.

Squad

Mohamed Mabkhout 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.

Squad

The formation has left Khalifa Mubarak behind

Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Al Shaab will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.

Transfer targets

Al Shaab try to borrow Majid Surour

Sharjah have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.

Transfer targets

Al Shaab ask about Saad Al-Mosa

A loan enquiry to Al-Ittihad: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.

The dugout

Ibrahim Saeed knocks on the manager’s door

“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ibrahim Saeed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

Market

Mahmoud Al Junaibi 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 Mahmoud Al Junaibi stands, which is more than many ever get.

In brief