Two goals and a mark of 9.04 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. Tozé provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Trezeguet 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.
7 goals in one match, Tozé on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Al-Riyadh and Ohod.
At 22 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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.” Saeed Al-Khaibari, on a 6‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Milan Borjan
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Trezeguet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mamadou Sylla. 2‑0 against Al-Orobah, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Saeed Al-Khaibari on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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 Trezeguet is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al-Riyadh will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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-Riyadh can pretend not to have heard.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Clement Zubah had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Trezeguet 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Al-Riyadh will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Trezeguet 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.
The name of Clement Zubah has come up in conversations Al-Riyadh were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.22, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Victor Lekhal was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Saeed Al-Khaibari kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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-Riyadh, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Al-Riyadh can give him that is a question about the club, not about 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-Riyadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Trezeguet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
A brace, and Mamadou Sylla takes the afternoon — 8.73
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mamadou Sylla provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Najran waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Al-Riyadh is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Al-Riyadh have done the hard part with Al-Mojzel, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al-Njoom is saying, and nobody at Al-Riyadh is enjoying the guessing.
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-Riyadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Trezeguet 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fahad Al-Mansour has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdullah Al-Qahtani is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Salem Al-Shehri is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Al-Riyadh will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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-Riyadh heard it as anything else.
Mamadou Sylla 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Trezeguet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“80 caps was 80 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 38 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Al-Riyadh.
24 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.
Al-Riyadh have made the call to Al-Ta'ee. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.