Marked for Ivan Toney
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Al-Ahli
The unbeaten run reaches 14. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al-Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Roger Ibañez in a row with a teammate
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al-Ahli heard it as anything else.
Match7 Nov 2026
Three points for Al-Ahli, 2‑1 the final word against Al-Shabab in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
210% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Ahli
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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Enzo Millot did the work nobody counts — 7.40
11 combined actions and 7.40. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.06, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Nov 2026
Al-Ahli up to position 1
28 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match31 Oct 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Riyad Mahrez will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Al-Ahli escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Match31 Oct 2026
13 unbeaten for Al-Ahli
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 13 matches without defeat is a foundation Al-Ahli did not have in the autumn.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al-Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Age has not caught Riyad Mahrez yet — 8.30
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Al-Ahli release $4.5M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Hajer to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al-Ahli and fight for my place.” 9 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match24 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Al-Wehda, and it could have been more.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al-Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match24 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Al-Ahli
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Riyad Mahrez yet — 8.07
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market26 Oct 2026
Sporting CP paid $999.00 and Al-Ahli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Galeno was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
10 unbeaten for Al-Ahli
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Al-Ahli did not have in the autumn.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Galeno 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eduard Spertsyan wants continental football; whether Al-Ahli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Boardroom12 Oct 2026
234% of the income goes out in wages at Al-Ahli
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.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Al-Ahli, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Édouard Mendy knocks on the manager's door
“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-Ahli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Match10 Oct 2026
It needed Eduard Spertsyan to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hajer, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match3 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑1 against Al-Fateh, and it could have been more.
Match5 Oct 2026
Al-Ahli up to position 1
20 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Both of them Ivan Toney's — 8.99
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.99, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Riyad Mahrez, 35, rolls back the years — 8.13
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market5 Oct 2026
Al-Ahli may not be able to give Roger Ibañez what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Roger Ibañez wants continental football; whether Al-Ahli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match3 Oct 2026
Al-Ahli make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al-Ahli have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Roger Ibañez 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
38 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Sep 2026
8 unbeaten for Al-Ahli
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Al-Ahli did not have in the autumn.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ivan Toney. 2‑0 against Al-Faisaly, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match26 Sep 2026
Al-Ahli keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.38 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.16, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Sep 2026
Whatever happens, Al-Ahli do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Market21 Sep 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match19 Sep 2026
Al-Hilal made Al-Ahli work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.87. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad17 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Édouard Mendy out for 44 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al-Ahli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match15 Aug 2026
8‑0, and Galeno took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Al-Ahli tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A day Ivan Toney will not forget
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Galeno, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al-Ahli say no — this time
The offer from Orlando Pirates for Valentin Atangana 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Riyad Mahrez, 35, rolls back the years — 8.12
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.12 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Al-Fateh pay $1.7M, 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Roger Ibañez in a row with a teammate
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-Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.