Marked for Walid Obaid
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Feb 2029
Mohamed Suqrat damages knee ligaments — 39 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
A brace, and Fahad Saeed takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Fahad Saeed provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market5 Feb 2029
“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.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.89, and 3 involvements.
Squad5 Feb 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Match3 Feb 2029
It finished 3‑2, and it was Fahad Saeed’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Al Shaab.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Loan watch5 Feb 2029
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Emirates Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings15 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Jan 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mohamed Suqrat
61 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.
Market15 Jan 2029
“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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Walid 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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Khalid Suqrat 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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Augusto Solari, and the manager let it.
Market15 Jan 2029
The phone has started ringing about David Odia again, and this time the name on the line is Al-Wehda. Al Shaab are listening politely and promising nothing.
Loan watch15 Jan 2029
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Emirates Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings15 Jan 2029
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.50 on the card, and the Al Shaab support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mohamed Suqrat
84 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market18 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Walid 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.
Match16 Dec 2028
Hassan Al Kamali scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Baniyas, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Khalid Suqrat 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Al Shaab know it.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Marked 8.51 — 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.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Ninety minutes of Hassan Al Kamali at his very best
Marked 8.25. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Shaab.
Loan watch18 Dec 2028
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Emirates Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Dec 2028
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Dibba, and it could have been more.
Market11 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Al Shaab know it.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
Marked 8.52 — 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.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
Marked 8.36 — 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.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
Marked 8.34 — 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.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
A performance of 8.09 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings4 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Dec 2028
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.
Squad4 Dec 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Walid Obaid commits to Al Shaab for another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Augusto Solari, and the manager let it.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Ahmed Fawzi ran the middle of the pitch — 6.84
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.84, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Loan watch27 Nov 2028
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Emirates Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Match11 Nov 2028
It finished 2‑0, and it was Walid Hassan’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Al Shaab.
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.46, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
Ninety minutes of Walid Hassan at his very best
Marked 8.30. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Shaab.
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
Hassan Al Kamali was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ahmad Essa, and the manager let it.
Loan watch13 Nov 2028
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Emirates Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Oct 2028
Nowhere to hide for Al Shaab
0‑4 against Al Shabab, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad30 Oct 2028
There were 6 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.
Match28 Oct 2028
No end in sight to Al Shaab's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al Shaab has to find a result from somewhere.
Match28 Oct 2028
Al Shaab cannot find the net
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Oct 2028
“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.
Boardroom30 Oct 2028
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
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market23 Oct 2028
“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.
Match21 Oct 2028
4 matches without a win for Al Shaab
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Al Shaab are no longer polite ones.
Match21 Oct 2028
4 matches without a goal for Al Shaab
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Walid 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Khalid Suqrat 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.
Match21 Oct 2028
Al Nasr left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad23 Oct 2028
“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.
Loan watch23 Oct 2028
“I did not go to Emirates Club to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Shaab and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 61. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match4 Oct 2028
Al Shaab bow out of the cup
Al Shabab go through and Al Shaab go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ismail Rashid commits to Al Shaab for another 2 years.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Walid 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Augusto Solari 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Al Shaab know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Match16 Sep 2028
Three points for Al Shaab, 1‑0 the final word against Baniyas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Ninety minutes of Walid Hassan at his very best
Marked 8.21. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Shaab.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Sep 2028
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Dibba, and it could have been more.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A brace, and Walid Hassan takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Walid Hassan provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Ahmad Essa gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ahmad Essa has just signed for Al Shaab, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
At 30 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Marked 8.54 — 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.39, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Ismail Rashid was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 50. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Giorgio De Marzi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Augusto Solari and Al Shaab agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Walid 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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Khalid Suqrat 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 Sep 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ali Al Shamsi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market4 Sep 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nasser Abdulrahman 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.
Market4 Sep 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fahad Al Menhali is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom21 Aug 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Al Shaab
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Thiago Sánchez is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Walid 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Jul 2028
A fracture rules Walid Mabkhout out for 35 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shaab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Hussein Al-Naasan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Augusto Solari
28 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.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ismail Al Junaibi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Crisis meeting at Al Shaab
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market3 Jul 2028
“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 Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Walid Obaid in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Al Shaab sign 7 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
$3.2M taken back off the Al Shaab table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 May 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Augusto Solari
88 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.
Boardroom8 May 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad8 May 2028
Hassan Al Shamsi: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shaab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad8 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Walid Obaid commits to Al Shaab for another 2 years.
Squad8 May 2028
Augusto Solari 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.
Loan watch8 May 2028
“I did not go to Al Dhafra to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Shaab and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 37 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Jan 2028
Every point is an argument now for Al Shaab
Position 12 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match29 Jan 2028
The wait goes on for Al Shaab
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Habib Yousuf: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shaab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Jan 2028
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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Solari 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Nov 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match30 Oct 2027
Chastening afternoon for Al Shaab
A 0‑5 beating by Al Shabab was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Youssef Hussain 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
3 matches without a goal for Al Shaab
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Omar Al Hashmi out for 84 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shaab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match2 Oct 2027
6 matches without a win for Al Shaab
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Al Shaab are no longer polite ones.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Walid Obaid and Al Shaab agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Youssef Hussain 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ismail Rashid
74 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.
Squad5 Apr 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.
Loan watch5 Apr 2027
Ali Juma wants to come home
“I did not go to Al-Ahli to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Shaab and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.