Marked for Bandar Al Naqbi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Jan 2030
Saif Al-Menhali damages knee ligaments — 62 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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.
Player ratings28 Jan 2030
Defensive actions: 25, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market28 Jan 2030
Gerónimo Rivera wants to know where this is going
“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 Shabab hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad28 Jan 2030
An average of 7.02 in a first team he is several years too young for. Al Shabab have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad28 Jan 2030
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.
Player ratings28 Jan 2030
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Jan 2030
Defences have started doubling up on Salem Al Menhali
11 goals and a season average of 7.30 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match26 Jan 2030
A 1‑0 win over Al Shaab, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Boardroom28 Jan 2030
100% of the income goes out in wages at Al Shabab
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Jul 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rodrigo Paillalef
95 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 terraces2 Jul 2029
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.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Salem Juma has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market2 Jul 2029
Tarek Carranza has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al Shabab they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Chapa signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chapa and Al Shabab agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Chapa 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
The medical room confirms 46 days on the sidelines for Bandar Al Naqbi, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
Intake day at the Al Shabab academy
8 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
$3.4M taken back off the Al Shabab table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Feb 2029
Rashid Al Menhali damages knee ligaments — 47 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
A fracture rules Nawaf Al-Aqidi out for 25 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.
Match10 Feb 2029
No end in sight to Al Shabab's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Al Shabab has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Chapa 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Abdullah Al Junaibi 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.
Match10 Feb 2029
Al Wahda left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Ninety minutes of Salem Al Menhali at his very best
Marked 8.62. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Shabab.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Dec 2028
Nawaf Al-Aqidi breaks a bone — 100 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Chapa signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Chapa commits to Al Shabab for another 2 years.
Squad4 Dec 2028
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.
Match2 Dec 2028
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 Ahli in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match2 Dec 2028
Mahmoud Yaqoob scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑4 to Al Ahli, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Chapa 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.
Player ratings4 Dec 2028
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.
The terraces4 Dec 2028
The spotlight tightens on Chapa
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Oct 2028
The cup run ends for Al Shabab
1‑1 against Baniyas, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad9 Oct 2028
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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Shabab have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The terraces9 Oct 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 33 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Squad9 Oct 2028
A one-man rearguard from Álvaro Busso
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Bandar Al Naqbi pops up at the right end — 7.94
7.94, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad9 Oct 2028
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 terraces9 Oct 2028
At 22 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.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Salem Al Menhali was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Salem Juma has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market5 Jun 2028
Al Shabab say no — this time
The offer from RB Leipzig for Abdullah Al Junaibi 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.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mohamed Rahim and Al Shabab agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chapa 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
50 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom24 Apr 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Al Shabab
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad24 Apr 2028
“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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Al Shabab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chapa 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.