Marked for Khalfan Suqrat
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Sep 2030
Caio Maia 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.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Khalfan Suqrat gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Khalfan Suqrat has just signed for Al Fujairah, and for once the answer mattered.
The dugout9 Sep 2030
The manager makes an example of Khalid Hachadi
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad9 Sep 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ahmed Al-Obaidli and Al Fujairah agree another 3 years.
Market9 Sep 2030
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Ghaith Abdalla 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.
Looking ahead9 Sep 2030
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sultan Mohamed’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al Fujairah needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market9 Sep 2030
Still no signature from Caio Maia
5 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Al Fujairah could get for him.
Market9 Sep 2030
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Adli Mohamed arrives from Baniyas with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
A brace, and Youssef Al Hammadi takes the afternoon — 8.90
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Youssef Al Hammadi provided it, and the 8.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
Age has not caught Hany Mukhtar yet — 8.08
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Window shuts: 3 in, 3 out at Al Ahli
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Pedrozo 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.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
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.
Match3 Feb 2029
Al Nasr made Al Ahli work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Looking ahead5 Feb 2029
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
The dugout5 Feb 2029
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad5 Feb 2029
27 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Jan 2029
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Al Ahli had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market1 Jan 2029
“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.
Match30 Dec 2028
4 matches without a win for Al Ahli
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Al Ahli are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Jan 2029
38 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad1 Jan 2029
A row about effort at Al Ahli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Pedrozo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad1 Jan 2029
A falling-out at Al Ahli
Majed Omar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces1 Jan 2029
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdullah Al Hammadi 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 Jan 2029
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Ahli.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.