Position 2, 31 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Christian Benteke. 3‑1 against Al Nasr, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Al Nasr spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
A performance of 8.43 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattheus Oliveira 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.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Saeed Rashid was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I watch every Al Shabab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Qadisiyah runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Sharjah will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Abdalla Ghanim has pre-agreed a move to Al Shabab, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Shaheen Abdulrahman 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.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hamad Khalfan. 2‑1 against Dibba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ramiro Hernandes has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
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.
Mattheus Oliveira 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Felipe Motta wants continental football; whether Al Shabab can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Al Shabab will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
“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.
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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Al Shabab have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shabab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Al Shaab spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shabab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alireza Noorafkan provided it, and the 8.72 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alireza Noorafkan. 2‑0 against Sharjah, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Al Shabab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Konyaspor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rashid Obaid has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Rashid Obaid at his very best
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
At 34 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Al Shabab may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Ibrahim Hassan has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
32 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.
“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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Shaheen Abdulrahman scored, was marked 7.60, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Lorenzo Martínez reports back to Al Shabab with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lorenzo Martínez is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Majed Saeed 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Al Shabab
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ahmed Juma 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ismail Suqrat is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hamdan Al Shamsi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
21 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.
The offer from SC Freiburg for Lorenzo Martínez 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.
Fatih Karagumruk pay $1.1M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
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 words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
At 26 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
16 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.
Position 1, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shabab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
“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 Shabab heard it as anything else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Saeed Rashid has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Shabab heard it as anything else.
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.
Felipe Motta 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.
30 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.
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 offer from Bodo/Glimt for Fahad Yaqoob 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
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.
“I watch every Al Shabab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Zob Ahan runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Al Shabab that is a harder question to answer.
“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.
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.
Hamad Khalfan 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.
Add another name to the list: Bodo/Glimt have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fahad Yaqoob. The answer from Al Shabab has not changed — yet.
The offer from Bodo/Glimt for Lorenzo Martínez 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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Éder Guimarães provided it, and the 8.62 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The phone has started ringing about Lorenzo Martínez again, and this time the name on the line is Bodo/Glimt. Al Shabab are listening politely and promising nothing.
Ibrahim Hassan 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 found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Al Shabab pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Fahad Saeed’s exile
The terracesThe press have found their man in Éder Guimarães
BoardroomThe Al Shabab board put their names to it
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 89th, and Dibba spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad22 Feb 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Al Shabab man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Soumaïla Bakayoko was the best thing in any of them.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
“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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rashid Obaid 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.
The offer from Slavia Prague for Éder Guimarães 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Rashid Hussain will call it something else in private.
Add another name to the list: Slavia Prague have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Éder Guimarães. The answer from Al Shabab has not changed — yet.
“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.
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.
Hamad Khalfan 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.
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“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.
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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Hamad Khalfan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Soumaïla Bakayoko 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.
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.
The offer from Dibba for Nasser Al Kamali 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.
Majed Saeed 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.
Al Fujairah paid $84.0K and Al Shabab took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Hassan Al Hashmi, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Hassan Abdulrahman has come out of that comparison in the side, and Al Shabab have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“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.
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.
Felipe Motta 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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Éder Guimarães wants continental football; whether Al Shabab can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ibrahim Hassan 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.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Soumaïla Bakayoko 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.
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.
“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.
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.
Felipe Motta 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.
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Hassan Abdulrahman is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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 Shabab heard it as anything else.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Saeed Rashid has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
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.
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.
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nasser Al Hammadi 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.
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.
Al Wasl left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Soumaïla Bakayoko 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Al Shabab will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.