Marked for Amer Khalfan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Abdullah Hassan damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
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 The request is on a desk at Al Ahli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Amer Khalfan goes up and wins it — 7.36
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.36 for the rest of it.
Match7 Nov 2026
4 matches without a win for Al Ahli
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Al Ahli are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Imad Riahi 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 Nov 2026
17 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bakr El Helali 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Al Ahli rescue it on 94 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 94. Al Dhafra had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Imad Riahi beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Sep 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
18 combined actions and 6.68. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 40 days on the sidelines for Ismail Al Bloushi, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ibrahim Hassan is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Imad Riahi 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amer Khalfan 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Faisal Nader after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Bakr El Helali dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The clubs have shaken hands with Al Jazira; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market31 Aug 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Panathinaikos is saying, and nobody at Al Ahli is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
No deal for Evans Ampofo at that price
Al Ahli offered $420.0K; Dibba said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Amer Khalfan 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.
Looking ahead31 Aug 2026
They sit in position 6 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nasser Suqrat is not doing himself any favours
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Somebody to talk to at the next peg, a few words of the language, and a training ground that has stopped being a foreign country. It never appears in a scouting report and it decides most signings.
From our football correspondent
Steady
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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The offer went to Dibba this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Al Ahli offered $21.0K; Al Shaab said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Shaab have kept their man, and Al Ahli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Khalfan Al Hammadi 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Al Ahli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amer Khalfan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Omar Ismail, and the manager let it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Panathinaikos: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Al Ahli are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.