Marked for Abdullah Al-Sultan
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Jul 2028
Al-Nassr refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 60 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
Al-Nassr have gone to Al-Ittihad 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.
Market24 Jul 2028
The fee is $2.9M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Al-Hilal drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
$61.0K on the table at Al-Ittihad. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad24 Jul 2028
A row about effort at Al-Nassr
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jhon Durán was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market24 Jul 2028
Damac pay $240.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Al-Nassr are still strangers to each other
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 dugout24 Jul 2028
Sadio Mané has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Al-Nassr 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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdullah Al-Sultan and Al-Nassr agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Oct 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al-Nassr will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market25 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Nassr is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words exchanged at Al-Nassr
Marcelo Brozović 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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Al-Nassr training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jhon Durán 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 terraces25 Oct 2027
One of their own: Ângelo
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match23 Oct 2027
Three points for Al-Nassr, 2‑0 the final word against Al-Ra'ed in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
One of those days for Ângelo
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Oct 2027
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Nassr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match16 Oct 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Jhon Durán will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Al-Nassr escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match18 Oct 2027
Al-Nassr are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 19 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.81 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market18 Oct 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Marcelo Brozović 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Jhon Durán 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.
The terraces18 Oct 2027
Al-Nassr supporters have found a favourite in Jhon Durán
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Jhon Durán 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Oct 2027
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Nassr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad11 Oct 2027
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.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Aiman Yahya: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Nassr have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad11 Oct 2027
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-Nassr this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Jhon Durán 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.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Haroune Camara
“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.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Sadio Mané gets picked when it counts
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 Sadio Mané is on it.
Market11 Oct 2027
The Samú story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samú signs something — a contract at Al-Nassr or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Georges-Kévin Nkoudou trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.