The mood at Emirates Club has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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 The request is on a desk at Emirates Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Al Fujairah waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Emirates Club is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have shaken hands with Dibba; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Emirates Club asked and Al Dhafra said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Leandrinho 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 phone has started ringing about Rashed Essa Juma again, and this time the name on the line is Al Dhafra. Emirates Club are listening politely and promising nothing.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Emirates Club can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Al Jazira, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammed Abdulbasit and Emirates Club agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Emirates Club training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Success 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.
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.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Emirates Club lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad29 May 2028
Isaac Success 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 loan was meant to give him football. 3 games and 0 goals later he is back at Emirates Club no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jardel trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Isaac Tshibangu 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.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaac Success was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Emirates Club has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Emirates Club. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leandrinho and Emirates Club agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Emirates Club training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Success 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.
Leandrinho 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.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Takefusa Furuhashi leaves with $543.1K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Mamadou Coulibaly is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Emirates Club lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Emirates Club has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Emirates Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaac Success was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Emirates Club lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Emirates Club can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Isaac Success 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Emirates Club, and both men came out saying it was fine.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Emirates Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Emirates Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Emirates Club, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Emirates Club has been clear about where Mohamed Khalil stands, which is more than many ever get.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Emirates Club. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Diogo Capitão has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Emirates Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Isaac Tshibangu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaac Success was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
5 new faces, and Emirates Club are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The words a physio says slowly. 98 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.
There were 8 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Emirates Club training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Success 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.
Day 13 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ismail Al Hammadi after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Everything agreed with Al Fujairah, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Isaac Success 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Emirates Club is running low.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Leandrinho 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.
“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 dugout6 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Ismail Hassan left the room before anybody could ask which.
2 behind and going nowhere, until Darlison Rodrigues decided otherwise. Baniyas had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Baniyas made Emirates Club work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Isaac Success 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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Nov 2027
109% of the income goes out in wages at Emirates Club
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Zayed Ahmed knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Isaac Success 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Emirates Club can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Marcel Ratnik 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Emirates Club, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Al Fujairah next, and one man in the Emirates Club dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Isaac Success signs something — a contract at Emirates Club or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marius Marin 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.
Emirates Club pay $700.0K, 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.
Al Nasr asked and Al Ain said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gláuber trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Chris Bedia is on it.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Emirates Club lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 12 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Al Dhafra have accepted the money. What Emirates Club do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Al Nasr did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $810.0K for Hussain Mahdi, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Emirates Club have paid $700.0K for Mohammed Abdulbasit, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Emirates Club offered $180.0K; Al Jazira said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaac Success was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
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 Nasr this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Nasr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Al Nasr 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Al Nasr has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Nasr. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
David Petrović and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Al Nasr training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Costin Amzăr 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Nasr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
44 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
64 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Nasr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Nasr have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Costin Amzăr 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.
Nobody at Al Nasr 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Nasr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 6, 44 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Nasr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Nasr can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Moustapha Sidibé is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Nobody at Al Nasr 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Nasr. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al Nasr know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Nasr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
94 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Nasr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nobody at Al Nasr 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehdi Ghayedi signs something — a contract at Al Nasr or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
4 goals in 9 games at Cotonsport Garoua — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Al Nasr updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Position 6, 44 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Chris Bedia has written the date down.
68 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Fujairah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 14 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Mar 2027
Words at Al Fujairah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Pedrozo 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Al Fujairah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Asher Agbinone did not need any: 7.63, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
1 for Mohammed Abdulbasit, marked 7.77, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Saleh Al-Mesmari 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.
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.
A performance of 8.40 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Al Fujairah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khamis Al-Mansoori 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 words a physio says slowly. 82 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.
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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑5 Ismail Al Naqbi left the room before anybody could ask which.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Fujairah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 6.93, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Pedrozo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Fujairah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al Fujairah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Sultan Al-Saadi will call it something else in private.
137 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Fujairah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑3 to Baniyas, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
There were 8 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Al Fujairah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Pedrozo 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.
Petar Panić 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.
“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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Al Fujairah dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Ismail Al Naqbi to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
145 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al Fujairah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
13 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Al Dhafra were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 20 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Khamis Al-Mansoori was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 14, 5 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
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 Fujairah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Ismail Al Naqbi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Sultan Sabeel 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Pedrozo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Fujairah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Al Ahli next, and one man in the Al Fujairah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Fujairah. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Al Nasr training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Costin Amzăr 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Momodou Jatta's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Nobody at Al Nasr 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.
Al Wasl next, and one man in the Al Nasr dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Nasr. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Chris Bedia signs something — a contract at Al Nasr or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Al Fujairah are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Al Fujairah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Pedrozo 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.
Something was said to Mohammed Abdulbasit and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Ismail Al Naqbi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Mohamed Abdelrahman 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Momodou Jatta is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Al Nasr are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Nasr this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Marouan Azarkan has his answer from Al Nasr; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al Nasr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mayed Saeed was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
Looking aheadAn away day at Dibba next for Al Nasr
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Al Fujairah and Al Jazira, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al Fujairah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Ervin Taha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Al Fujairah are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑5 defeat, delivered by Ismail Al Naqbi to a room that had heard them before.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.72 for the rest of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Pedrozo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Al Fujairah will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Sharjah next, and one man in the Al Fujairah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Al Fujairah close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 0 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.
The deal with Al Shaab is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Al Fujairah ran out of time with Al Wasl. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Petar Panić has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Al Fujairah are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Novak Vuković 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 plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
“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 Fujairah, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Al Fujairah have done the hard part with Al Shaab, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Al Fujairah will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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 Fujairah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Pedrozo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Al Fujairah have made the call to Al Shaab. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Al Fujairah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Pedrozo 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Khamis Al-Mansoori arrives from Baniyas with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
The offer from Sharjah for Mateo Karamatić 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.
$880.0K on the table at Dibba. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Kevin Agudelo wants continental football; whether Al Nasr can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $66.8K — a club that wants Tarek Issaoui enough to be asked twice.
$58.0K on the table at Al Wasl. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
David Petrović 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.
Add another name to the list: Sharjah have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Felipe Motta. The answer from Al Nasr has not changed — yet.
Emirates Club offered $1.1M; Al Nasr said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.1M — a club that wants Mohammed Abdulbasit enough to be asked twice.
Isaac Success 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 offer went to Sharjah this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Nasr have kept their man, and Emirates Club go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rashed Essa Juma and Emirates Club agree another 3 years.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Emirates Club can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Salem Al Kamali has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ismail Al Junaibi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.