Marked for Rafael Costa
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hamad Al Suwaidi
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market2 Nov 2026
Amer Juma 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 Shabab can pretend not to have heard.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match31 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Al Shabab
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Al Shabab can tell you which week it ends in.
Match31 Oct 2026
0‑2 to Al Shaab, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hamad Al Suwaidi
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Khalfan Ismail 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Rafael Costa
“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.
Match17 Oct 2026
0‑2 to Sharjah, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al Shabab, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Hamad Al Suwaidi damages knee ligaments — 133 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 133 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.
Match7 Oct 2026
Al Shabab bow out of the cup
Al Shaab go through and Al Shabab go home, 1‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
Al Shabab are taken apart by Al Shaab — and the town wants answers
It finished 1-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Ahmed Juma yet — 8.20
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad12 Oct 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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Oct 2026
Baniyas made Al Shabab work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Khalfan Nader
“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 ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Hamad Al Suwaidi damages knee ligaments — 140 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 140 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
“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.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rafael Costa wants continental football; whether Al Shabab can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Khalfan Ismail 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nasser Al Naqbi is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match3 Oct 2026
Three points for Al Shabab, 2‑1 the final word against Al Dhafra in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
Rafael Costa wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Shabab hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahmoud Al Junaibi 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ahmed Hussain 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Omar Ismail, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. Al Shabab were going nowhere until he came on.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 8. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Sep 2026
Al Shabab spent the window trying to move Mahmoud Hassan on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market7 Sep 2026
Amer Juma 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 Shabab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hassan Khalfan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hamad Saeed has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market7 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mohamed Omar has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Match5 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Al Ahli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Díaz, and the manager let it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Al Shabab turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rafael Costa pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al Shabab have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Youssef Al Suwaidi, and the manager let it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ahmed Hussain and Al Shabab agree another 3 years.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al Shabab have let the market know Mahmoud Hassan can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rafael Costa and Al Shabab agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market10 Aug 2026
The chase for Abdallah Al-Blooshi ended with $370.0K changing hands and Dibba out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad10 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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Al Shabab spend $370.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $370.0K for Abdallah Al-Blooshi, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahmoud Al Junaibi 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
Market3 Aug 2026
Rafael Costa wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Shabab hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Khalfan Nader 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
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al Shabab have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.