41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Shabab lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al-Shabab people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer went to Damac 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.
$2.6M on the table at Al-Ittihad. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$1.5M on the table at Al-Qadisiyah. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al-Shabab hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.6M — a club that wants Mohammad Alsalkhadi enough to be asked twice.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
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 Muhannad Al-Shanqiti is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Josh Brownhill signs something — a contract at Al-Shabab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 9 on 36 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
7 goals and a season average of 7.20. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Turki Al-Subaie to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Abdulrahman Al-Obud signs something — a contract at Al-Shabab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
25 appearances at Al-Fayha and the goals have stopped going in. Al-Shabab lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Al-Ahli.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Khaleej have kept their man, and Al-Shabab go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Abdulrahman Al-Obud.
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 Abdulrahman Al-Obud is on it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Turki Al-Subaie chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
7.93, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Al-Shabab 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.
A loan enquiry to Picerno: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Turki Al-Subaie, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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-Shabab can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Daniel Podence provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Al-Riyadh will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Saud Zaydan has pre-agreed a move to Al-Shabab, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Ittihad have kept their man, and Al-Shabab go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Al-Shabab have made the call to Al-Diriyah. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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-Shabab, and it is not being withdrawn.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Al-Shabab had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“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-Shabab heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Muhannad Al-Shanqiti and Al-Shabab agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Al-Shabab asked and Al-Diriyah said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two goals and a mark of 8.76 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Roger Martínez 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.
At 23 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.
Chances created: 12. The column nobody reads carried the whole story of the match, and his name was at the top of it.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Turki Al-Subaie, on a 4‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Hamed Al-Ghamdi
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 Abdulrahman Al-Obud is on it.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Turki Al-Subaie chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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 am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Al-Shabab was different afterwards.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Al-Shabab and Al-Fateh, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abdulrahman Al-Obud, and the manager let it.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Daniel Podence was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Josh Brownhill was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 5‑1, Turki Al-Subaie could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Al-Shabab 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.
Up for the corner, and Thomas Partey delivers — 7.79
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Thomas Partey scored, was marked 7.79, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
At 23 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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 Muhannad Al-Shanqiti is on it.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Al-Shabab know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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-Shabab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Al-Wehda made Al-Shabab work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Daniel Podence was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hassan Al-Shammari and Al-Shabab agree another 3 years.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Turki Al-Subaie, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Al-Shabab 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 Josh Brownhill signs something — a contract at Al-Shabab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Al-Ittihad in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
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.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Al-Wehda in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Al-Shabab has been clear about where Hammam Al-Hammami stands, which is more than many ever get.
A performance of 8.16 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Turki Al-Subaie, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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-Shabab, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Josh Brownhill signs something — a contract at Al-Shabab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Al-Shabab asked and Al-Qadisiyah said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Something was said to Hammam Al-Hammami and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Turki Al-Subaie was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Al-Shabab dressing room was either.
14 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Al-Khaleej defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hamed Al-Ghamdi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mohammed Al-Thani’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al-Shabab needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
The chase for Hamed Al-Ghamdi ended with $2.9M changing hands and Al-Ittihad out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Al-Shabab asked and Al-Nassr said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ali Makki 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.
Nobody at Al-Shabab 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 Abdulrahman Al-Obud signs something — a contract at Al-Shabab or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 4, 56 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.
The number went down and he came anyway, which in this sport is either a romantic gesture or a market telling somebody something. Time will decide which, and the dressing room will have an opinion long before that.
A new face in his position, and Daniel Podence suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Al-Shabab have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Add another name to the list: Al-Khaleej have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yannick Carrasco. The answer from Al-Shabab has not changed — yet.
The deal with Lecco 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Taawoun have kept their man, and Al-Shabab 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.” Majed Abdullah and Al-Shabab agree another 4 years.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Al-Shabab 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Abdulrahman Al-Obud is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al-Shabab. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdul Aziz Al-Fawaz trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Hammam Al-Hammami’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Olympiacos can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Olympiacos told Leon Bailey something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Stefan Ortega is on it.
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” Ponferradina suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to Olympiacos, and the summer will force it.
In brief
SquadAmir Taremi is the talk of the training ground
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Olympiacos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Olympiacos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Olympiacos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Panargiakos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Olympiacos is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Olympiacos hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Ayoub El Kaabi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Clayton. 2‑0 against AEK, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Two goals and a mark of 9.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.65 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Panagiotis Santis provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Olympiacos and Aris Thessaloniki in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 9 goals between Olympiacos and Nestos Chrysoupoli, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Olympiacos supporters have already started telling 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 fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.