64 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.6M has been paid because Leonel Wamba is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abdullah Al Shamsi and Al Shabab agree another 4 years.
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.
The name of Mohamed El Khaloui has come up in conversations Al Shabab were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The terraces14 Aug 2028
Al Shabab spend $3.6M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $3.6M for Leonel Wamba, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Facundo Kruspzky 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadMateo Zapata is a better footballer than he was
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hamza Bahaj will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al Shabab the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
In brief
SquadJacob Awoute is a better footballer than he was
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Shabab is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Faisal Omar has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Ibrahim Obaid 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.
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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.
“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 Shabab, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 Shabab heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Artur Bybik has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al Shabab, another week without a signature from Facundo Kruspzky.
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid Abdulrahman 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.
Al Shaab paid $84.0K and Al Shabab took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Shabab is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emiliano Amor 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 match ball belongs to Majed Al Junaibi, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
The terraces31 Jan 2028
The mood at Al Shabab has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Two goals and a mark of 8.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Shabab, 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 Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Al Shabab and Al Shaab, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Baniyas made Al Shabab work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Novak Vuković 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Al Shabab are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 8 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al Shabab and Al Jazira in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid Abdulrahman 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.
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.
“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 Shabab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faisal Omar 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Brahima Diarra 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.
“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 Shabab, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Khalid Mabkhout again, and this time the name on the line is ENPPI. Al Shabab are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Faisal Omar 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.
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.
The offer from Padideh for Arthur Borges was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Majed 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.
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Faisal Omar 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.
“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 Shabab know it.
Arthur Borges had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Baniyas were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdullah Al Shamsi and Al Shabab agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Ibrahim Saeed 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.
2‑3 to Baniyas, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faisal Omar 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.