Marked for Saeed Al-Dawsari
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
A brace, and Jonathan Okita takes the afternoon — 9.34
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonathan Okita provided it, and the 9.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market29 Oct 2029
“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.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match27 Oct 2029
Damac cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Tempers go at Damac
Jonathan Okita 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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
100 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
Match27 Oct 2029
A 3‑1 win over Al-Saudi Al-Watani, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Defences have started doubling up on David Kaiki
12 goals and a season average of 7.21 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
A performance of 8.57 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Two goals and a mark of 8.99 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market1 Oct 2029
“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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Tempers go at Damac
Jonathan Okita 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.
Match29 Sep 2029
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Damac and Al-Nahda, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match29 Sep 2029
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thamer Al-Shahrani. 4‑2 against Al-Nahda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match29 Sep 2029
Damac are at home on the road
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
Kewin gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Marked 8.28 — 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 ratings1 Oct 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.23, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Sep 2029
“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.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Damac close the window on a squad of their own making
16 in and 13 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Tempers go at Damac
Jonathan Okita 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.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Saeed Al-Dawsari has just signed for Damac, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Belts tighten at Damac
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Player ratings3 Sep 2029
David Kaiki beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match1 Sep 2029
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout3 Sep 2029
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Market3 Sep 2029
He is 18, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Feb 2028
Hassan Al-Shamrani damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Match5 Feb 2028
Al-Ta'ee punish Ohod for switching off
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Azzam Al-Bishi will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Ohod escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.24, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Ohod until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market7 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Tempers go at Ohod
Meshal Sibyani 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.
Match5 Feb 2028
Beaten 3‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Feb 2028
David Idaiye 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.