The Al Shabab Post
Match15 Feb 2027
Al Shabab are in real trouble now
Position 14, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Ahmed Al Junaibi out for 89 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Shabab will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Ahmed Juma says Al Shabab went back on their word
“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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Saeed Khalfan 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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom15 Feb 2027
Al Shabab agree a free transfer for Hasan Al-Muharrami
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Jorge Bosmediano 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
Al Shabab and Al Wahda take a point apiece
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Nasser Suqrat runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
4 goals on loan for Alberto Ocejo
15 appearances at Persepolis and the goals keep coming. Al Shabab are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
In brief
- Market The window shut and Khalfan Nader is still in the building
- Player ratings Ali Al Kamali spends the afternoon fouling