Malcom and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Talisca was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.59. 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.
He is 23 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Rubin had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Nabil Fekir will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Al Jazira escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.55, and nobody on the pitch better.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Al Jazira until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Al Shabab moved on, Ilyass Lagrimi reports back to Al Jazira, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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 Jazira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
Add another name to the list: Zamalek have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Manuel Lanzini. The answer from Al Jazira has not changed — yet.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
Al Fujairah paid $22.0K and Al Jazira took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutKhalid Nader knocks on the manager's door
Al Wahda paid $1.1M and Al Jazira took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
$530.0K was the most the club would pay and Al Wahda were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Shaab have kept their man, and Al Jazira go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Al Jazira asked and Dibba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
The phone has started ringing about Oumar Traoré again, and this time the name on the line is Al Wahda. Al Jazira are listening politely and promising nothing.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hassan Hussain is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Faisal Nader has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad10 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Al Jazira 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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Al Jazira would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
436 appearances across 22 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Malcom 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.
“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 Jazira hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.