“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-Riyadh can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
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-Riyadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Al-Nahda have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Clement Zubah. The answer from Al-Riyadh has not changed — yet.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Words at Al-Riyadh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yoann Barbet 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.
At 31 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.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Leandro Antunes talk too
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Riyadh lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Al-Riyadh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leandro Antunes 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 words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Al-Riyadh, and it is not being withdrawn.
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-Riyadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Afran Abdullayev has just signed for Al-Riyadh, and for once the answer mattered.
Afran Abdullayev is 20, and Al-Riyadh have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
In brief
MarketAhmed Al-Siyahi returns from a loan that gave him nothing