Marked for Hamdan Ismail
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match30 Jan 2027
5 matches without a win for Al Ahli
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Al Ahli are no longer polite ones.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Hamdan Nader 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 Feb 2027
Hamdan Ismail 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
7.83, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Al Ahli had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad1 Feb 2027
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Al Ahli pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Match30 Jan 2027
It needed Salem Al Junaibi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Al Fujairah, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Nobody could get near Ahmed Omar
Successful dribbles: 42. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Jan 2027
There were 12 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Chastening afternoon for Al Ahli
A 2‑5 beating by Al Shaab was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.17, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market11 Jan 2027
The fee is $360.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Al Wahda drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Salem Al Junaibi 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Rashid Suqrat among the goals in a wild afternoon
7 goals in one match, Rashid Suqrat on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Al Ahli and Al Shaab.
The terraces11 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 16-year-old it feels ownership of. Rashid Suqrat has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Market11 Jan 2027
The name of Rashid Khalfan has come up in conversations Al Ahli were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Al Ahli dressing room in a hurry
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Squad
The manager has not finished forgetting Hamdan Nader's mistake
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match16 Dec 2026
Al Ahli through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Al Ain, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Ahmed Omar runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market21 Dec 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al Ahli heard it as anything else.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Hamdan Nader 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolás Campisi, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Hamdan Ismail 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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Walid Ismail was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Walid Ismail has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Al Ahli will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match30 Nov 2026
Al Ahli up to position 3
25 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market30 Nov 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Salem Al Junaibi wants continental football; whether Al Ahli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Salem Al Junaibi 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.84 beside his name.
Match28 Nov 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al Ahli and Al Jazira in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match28 Nov 2026
Three points for Al Ahli, 4‑2 the final word against Al Jazira in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamdan Ismail 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
Triumph
Squad7 Sep 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Walid Ismail takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Walid Ismail provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market7 Sep 2026
Sultan Rashid 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Hamdan Nader 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 Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Graduation day at Al Ahli
3 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
A 3‑1 win over Al Shabab, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rashid Suqrat 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fahad Ismail 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 135 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market17 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.
Squad17 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Hamdan Ismail 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al-Khaleej are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Al Ahli will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Al Ahli know it, and so does everybody who watches him.