There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Majed Al Junaibi provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al Ahli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bandar Rashid 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Majed Al Junaibi. 3‑1 against Al Nasr, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Hazim Abbas 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.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Ahmed Khalfan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.79. 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al Ahli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Ahli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Omar Al Hammadi after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Suhail Abdulla’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al Ahli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Ahli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omar Al Hammadi chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Yannick Semedo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Hazim Abbas’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al Ahli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al Ahli, another week without a signature from Ali Hussain.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Al Ahli have no good answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Bandar Omar has written the date down.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Ahli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Bandar Rashid 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.
Dibba made Al Ahli work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Ahmed Khalfan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al Ahli, another week without a signature from Yannick Semedo.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Ahli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A brace, and Ahmed Khalfan takes the afternoon — 9.12
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ahmed Khalfan provided it, and the 9.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Emirates Club spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Bandar Rashid was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.41. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Omar Al Hammadi could afford to be generous.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Ali Hussain
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al Ahli, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
It has nothing to do with his form and everything to do with how the squad was assembled. He will train all week with a group he is not permitted to play for, which is a strange way to spend a season.
Emirates Club next, and one man in the Al Ahli dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Al Ahli will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Olympique Lyonnais moved on, Majed Al Junaibi reports back to Al Ahli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Arthur Correia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al Ahli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Al Ahli until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
5 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.
Bandar Rashid 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ali Ismail 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al Ahli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A date was given and it came and went. Nobody upstairs will call it a broken promise, and nobody downstairs will call it anything else for a long time.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Khalid Nader had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Arthur Correia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al Ahli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
39 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Yannick Semedo 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Fernando Ramos and Al Ahli agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Aug 2027
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Ahli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Bandar Rashid and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Al Ahli have made the call to Crvena Zvezda. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Yannick Semedo 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.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Al Ahli asked and Al Shaab said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Ahli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A season-long audition: Al Wasl still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Al Ahli's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Khalfan Al Hammadi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Al Ahli offered $140.0K; 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.
Al Ahli asked and Dibba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Majed Al Junaibi is on it.
Ayman Sellouf has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Al Ahli will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hassan Sani Mohamed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The chase for Hazim Abbas ended with $720.0K changing hands and Al Ain out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Al Wahda paid $1.4M and Al Ahli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Yannick Semedo 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.
Al Ahli asked and Al Shaab said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Ahli know it.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Ahli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al Ahli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Yannick Semedo 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.
“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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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 Ahli, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Yannick Semedo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Majed Al Junaibi is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Ahli. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Ahli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
8 goals in 25 games at Dibba — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Al Ahli updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Fahad Omar 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.
22 appearances and 5 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Marked 8.12 — 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.
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Ahli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Successful dribbles: 39. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al Ahli, and 6 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Ahli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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 Ahli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Al Ahli until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nahyan Al-Mamari is living that version at Al Ahli, and it tends to show in the first month.
Yannick Semedo 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al Ahli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer from Baniyas for Sultan Juma 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.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Shabab have kept their man, and Al Ahli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Minute 85, against Al Ain, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al Ahli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Al Ahli know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
Successful dribbles: 36. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Yannick Semedo 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al Ahli, and 4 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Majed Omar after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Khalid Butti
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Ahmed Khalfan scored in the 87th minute, Emirates Club had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Al Ahli took the lot.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
A 2‑1 win over Emirates Club, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ahmed Khalfan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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.
“I watch every Al Ahli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dibba runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Al Ahli will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
SquadWords at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
“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.
The chase for Louay Trayi ended with $1.3M changing hands and Al Wahda out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Wahda have kept their man, and Al Ahli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$1.3M was the most the club would pay and Deportivo Riestra were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
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.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Nabil Jaadi is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Al Ahli has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Abdullah Al Shamsi has gone, the accounts have $3.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Al Ahli have paid $2.1M for Igor Serrote, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Al Shaab paid $3.5M and Al Ahli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The offer from Al-Ra'ed for Saeed Omar 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.
Bandar Rashid 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Khalid Nader, and the manager let it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al Ahli people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Al Ahli have gone to Al Jazira with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Al Ahli offered $1.9M; Estudiantes 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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Al Ahli will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Add another name to the list: Al Shaab have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Abdullah Al Shamsi. The answer from Al Ahli has not changed — yet.
Al Ahli had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Persepolis, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Majed Al Junaibi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$1.4M on the table at Estudiantes. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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.
Bandar Rashid and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Wahda have kept their man, and Al Ahli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Ali Hussain again, and this time the name on the line is Al Dhafra. Al Ahli are listening politely and promising nothing.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Al Ahli will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Al Ahli have made the call to Persepolis. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
The dugoutBandar Rashid asks for a word with the manager