Marked for Ibrahim Al-Harbi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Sep 2030
Cup progress for Damac
A 3‑2 win over Al-Orobah, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match14 Sep 2030
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Yahya Naji will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Damac escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings16 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 32. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings16 Sep 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings16 Sep 2030
What a way to start for Talal Al-Salem — 7.39
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.39 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Squad16 Sep 2030
There were 7 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 ratings16 Sep 2030
Ibrahim Al-Harbi, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.19
A mark of 8.19 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Boardroom16 Sep 2030
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Pietro Rondolini has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad16 Sep 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 Damac this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 May 2030
Words exchanged at Damac
Jonathan Okita 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.
Squad13 May 2030
Yahya Naji 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.
Squad13 May 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Omer Natcho and Damac agree another 3 years.
The dugout13 May 2030
Yahya Sunbul has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Damac 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.
Market13 May 2030
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market13 May 2030
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Damac money.
Market13 May 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Damac know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad13 May 2030
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Damac will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Boardroom13 May 2030
Damac keep producing them
61 graduates from an academy now rated 9 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout6 May 2030
Waleed Al-Nemer: 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.” Damac have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 May 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Damac can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 May 2030
$606.2K of the owner's money at Damac
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad6 May 2030
Words exchanged at Damac
Yahya Naji 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 dugout6 May 2030
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad6 May 2030
Words at Damac training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pietro Rondolini 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.
Boardroom6 May 2030
The Damac debt reaches $13.7M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad6 May 2030
36 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market6 May 2030
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.