Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Al Shaab training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Rossi 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.
“I watch every Al Shaab game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Shabab runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A first appearance Amer Rashid will want to forget — 5.63
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.63, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.66 beside his name.
Abdullah Al Kamali 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.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Erick Rossi 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 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.
In brief
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Khalfan Ismail
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 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.
Marked 5.64. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Marked 5.68. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Al Shaab would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“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 Shaab, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Al Ahli have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Youssef Nader. The answer from Al Shaab has not changed — yet.
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 Shaab this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.