Marked for Hamad Omar
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 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 Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Akçiçek 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market9 Nov 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Al Ahli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The match ball belongs to Youssef Ismail, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Youssef 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Youssef Ismail’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Al Ahli.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I watch every Al Ahli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sharjah runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Fahad Nader 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 Ahli can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Aug 2026
Al Ahli say no — this time
The offer from Al Shabab for Luiz Fonseca 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Rashid Suqrat reports back to Al Ahli with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Hamad Omar 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Faisal Obaid 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Mohamed Omar for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Al Ahli will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmed Al Shamsi
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 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 Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamad Omar 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Luiz Fonseca has come up in conversations Al Ahli were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmed Al Shamsi
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Aug 2026
Al Jazira come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al Ahli 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.” Youssef Ismail commits to Al Ahli for another 4 years.
In brief
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Squad
Tempers go at Al Ahli
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Squad
Hamad Omar falls out with a teammate over standards
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Market
No place for Fahad Nader in the plan
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Market
Experience through the door at Al Ahli