The Emirates Club Chronicle
Squad10 Feb 2031
Khalid Obaid damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Market10 Feb 2031
Gustavo Mueller puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Emirates Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market10 Feb 2031
As if he never left: Rashed Essa Juma returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Rashed Essa Juma is a Emirates Club player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Tempers go at Emirates Club
Diogo Capitão 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.
Match8 Feb 2031
Still nobody has beaten Emirates Club
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match8 Feb 2031
Darlison Rodrigues sends Emirates Club past Baniyas
It finished 3‑1, and it was Darlison Rodrigues’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Emirates Club.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Words at Emirates Club training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Motta 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.
Transfer targets10 Feb 2031
Door shut on Hamdan Hussain
Emirates Club asked and Al Ahli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match8 Feb 2031
Emirates Club make home a hard place to visit
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
In brief
- Player ratings Darlison Rodrigues in the eights
- Player ratings Felipe Motta in the eights
- Player ratings Ninety minutes of Mackenzie Hunt at his very best