The Al Shaab Sentinel
Squad12 Oct 2026
The knee: Walid Al Suwaidi out for 136 days
136 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Shaab lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Oct 2026
Cup progress for Al Shaab
A 3‑0 win over Al Shabab, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Salem Al Kamali, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.17
A mark of 8.17 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Al Shaab do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Amer Hassan — 7.98
Marked 7.98. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Al Shaab
Ali Al Suwaidi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
One of their own: Faisal Al Menhali
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nasser Al Menhali 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Mohamed Al Hashmi in the eights
A performance of 8.24 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
In brief
- Match Mohamed Al Hashmi rescues a point for Al Shaab
- The dugout The manager’s verdict
- Looking ahead Al Shaab take on the side everybody is chasing