The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Carlos Souza did not need any: 8.19, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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 Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeed Suqrat 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.
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Carlos Souza, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.68
A mark of 7.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Al Shabab moved on, Saeed Suqrat reports back to Al Ahli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
9.31. 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Saeed Al Suwaidi. 3‑1 against Emirates Club, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Al Suwaidi 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.
Saeed Suqrat 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
The division's best last weekend was a Al Ahli man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Saeed Al Suwaidi was the best thing in any of them.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al Ahli can pretend not to have heard.
Erik 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Al Ahli will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeed Suqrat 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 words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Bandar Al Hashmi 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: Al Wasl have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Youssef Ismail. The answer from Al Ahli has not changed — yet.
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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Salem Mabkhout reports back to Al Ahli with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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 Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bandar Al Hashmi 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Saeed Al Suwaidi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.