104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al Wahda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Wahda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Dušan Tadić 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Saša Ivković 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.
A 2‑0 win over Emirates Club, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
19 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Wahda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Saša Ivković 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.
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.
8.83. 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.
Dušan Tadić 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gerónimo Rivera signs something — a contract at Al Wahda or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Jadsom reports back to Al Wahda with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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 Wahda, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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 Wahda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Al Wahda
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saša Ivković 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.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“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 Wahda hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Dušan Tadić 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Saša Ivković 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saša Ivković 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gerónimo Rivera wants continental football; whether Al Wahda can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Saša Ivković 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 Al Wahda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Gerónimo Rivera was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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 award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Al Wahda have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
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 Wahda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Gastón Suárez 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.
Rubert Quijada is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Al Wahda has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.