Marked for Ismail Obaid
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad1 Feb 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.
Squad1 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.
Match30 Jan 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Danilo Catalano 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
A mark of 5.11 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Market1 Feb 2027
A season-long audition: Al Dhafra still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Al Shaab's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Dec 2026
Al Ain will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Al Shaab were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.15, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Ismail Obaid, 35, rolls back the years — 8.54
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.54 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad28 Dec 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Al Shaab settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Al Ain spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
15 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Dec 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“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 ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
In brief
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Player ratings
Off the bench and decisive: Ahmed Fawzi
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Boardroom
Al Shaab were not finished after all
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The terraces
The press have found their man in Ismail Obaid
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
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.
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
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.