Marked for Saeed Omar
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match14 Oct 2026
Cup progress for Al Ahli
A 3‑0 win over Baniyas, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Saeed Omar runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Louay Trayi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Al Ahli
Igor Serrote 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 terraces19 Oct 2026
Al Ahli supporters have found a favourite in Louay Trayi
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Louay Trayi 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 ratings19 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.22 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Majed Hassan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Majed Al Junaibi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Al Ahli
Igor Serrote and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Market12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Al Ahli are still strangers to each other
9 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.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“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 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Yannick Semedo knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yannick Semedo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market12 Oct 2026
Saeed Omar told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Saeed Omar has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Al Ahli.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Hassan Sani Mohamed’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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
So close: Saeed Omar’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Al Shaab moved on, Saeed Omar reports back to Al Ahli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
$96.0K was the most the club would pay and Al Ain 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Al Ahli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Khalifa Mubarak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The formation has left Yannick Semedo behind
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Al Nasr to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Ahli and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Sultan Juma hands in a written request
“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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Al Ahli
Bandar Rashid and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market31 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Al Ahli have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 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 targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Al Wahda, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Khalifa Mubarak 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Majed Al Junaibi keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Al Ahli say nothing, which says plenty.
Market24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A season on the outside for Igor Serrote
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
“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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Igor Serrote arrives at Al Ahli in a $2.1M statement of intent
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al Ahli say no — this time
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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 dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sultan Al Naqbi and Al Ahli agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.