Marked for Fahad Al Shamsi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Jan 2027
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match2 Jan 2027
0‑4 to Sharjah, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
The mood at Al Shaab has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market4 Jan 2027
Al Shaab say no — this time
The offer from Al Wahda for Fahad Al Shamsi 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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Al Shaab
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Al Shaab is running low.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Ibrahim Saeed falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al Shaab have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A month that belonged to Majed Ismail
The young player of the month award goes to a 18-year-old at Al Shaab who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.92 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Faisal Mabkhout 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
12 goals and a season average of 7.28. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Alireza Naghizadeh falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Match26 Dec 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Nov 2026
2‑5 to Al Wasl, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad9 Nov 2026
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad9 Nov 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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al Shaab and Al Wasl in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Salem Al Junaibi, and the manager let it.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Al Shaab dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Sep 2026
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shaab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Shaab can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
Al Shaab say no — this time
The offer from Baniyas for Ismail Hussain 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Faisal Mabkhout 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Graduation day at Al Shaab
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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Al Dhafra left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market7 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rashid 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Majed Al Naqbi 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Khalifa Mubarak
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shaab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Aug 2026
Al Wahda come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al Shaab did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Faisal Mabkhout commits to Al Shaab for another 4 years.
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Fahad Al Shamsi falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Hamdan Suqrat has come up in conversations Al Shaab were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Faisal Mabkhout 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fahad Al Shamsi 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Faisal Mabkhout trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ali Abdulrahman has his answer from Al Shaab; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market3 Aug 2026
At 33, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.