Theo Bongonda 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.
$38.0K on the table at Al-Ettifaq. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Al-Faisaly have made the call to Al-Shabab. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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.
Nobody at Al-Faisaly 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.
Not every move is upward. Saleh Al-Ohaymid has accepted terms at Al-Faisaly that are worse than the ones he left, and the only question that matters now is whether the football makes up for it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Al-Faisaly, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed with Hajer and then the doctor spoke. Al-Faisaly have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
The offer went to Al-Ettifaq 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-Jeel have kept their man, and Al-Faisaly go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Yael Trepy 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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Seck 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.
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.
“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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yael Trepy 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Faisaly 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.
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 Munif Doshi is on it.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al-Faisaly will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Yael Trepy 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.
Al-Faisaly 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Al-Faisaly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Seck 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.
Nobody at Al-Faisaly 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.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Al-Faisaly have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
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 Wilfried Eza has written the date down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Talal Al-Shubili has just signed for Al-Faisaly, and for once the answer mattered.
The paperwork is done: Talal Al-Shubili joins from Al-Riyadh in a deal worth $170.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Yael Trepy 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Diriyah have kept their man, and Al-Faisaly go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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-Faisaly, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Al-Ettifaq, 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.” Jean Charles Ahoua and Al-Faisaly agree another 4 years.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Faisaly can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Al-Faisaly asked and Al-Taawoun said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.