112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Nahda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Al-Nahda, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal that would have taken Muhayya Al-Sulami to Al-Mojzel has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Al-Nahda with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Nahda is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ayel Haqawi 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.
Jonathan Valdivia 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Al-Nahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Al-Eid 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.
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Nahda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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-Nahda can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ahmed Al-Dagher has just signed for Al-Nahda, and for once the answer mattered.
Abdullah Al-Dossari 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.
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.
Morteza Khodadad is 19, and Al-Nahda have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
In brief
Boardroom$608.4K taken back off the Al-Nahda table
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.
Ahmad Dejagah 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.
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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.