7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mohammed Al-Yami, and the manager let it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Mohamed Absi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Aquino 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-Orobah go through and Al-Faisaly go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Eduardo Henrique 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.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kaveh Rezaeian, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Jahfali 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.
5 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
“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-Faisaly can pretend not to have heard.
Eduardo Henrique 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 Eduardo Henrique, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jorge Aquino 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Al-Faisaly will not try tonight.
6 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.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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-Faisaly, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $330.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Damac drove a hard bargain; time will say who won 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-Faisaly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Raphael Silva, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdullah Al-Mogren 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Two goals and a mark of 8.26 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gostaresh Foulad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Al-Taawoun for Kaveh Rezaeian 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gostaresh Foulad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shahriar Torabi 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. Kaveh Rezaeian 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.
Karim Ebrahimi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.13
A mark of 8.13 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Add another name to the list: Al-Faisaly have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kaveh Rezaeian. The answer from Gostaresh Foulad has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gostaresh Foulad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.89, and 2 involvements.
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.
At 21 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.