From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 74 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 74 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Whatever happens, Al Wahda do not lose
11 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saša Ivković, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Ghorbani 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Dušan Tadić leaves them behind him
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alaeddine Zouhir
82 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Al Wahda did not have in the autumn.
Market2 Nov 2026
“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 Wahda heard it as anything else.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Eli Dasa in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 461% of everything Al Wahda earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Marked 8.24 — 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Gerónimo Rivera
4 goals and a season average of 7.25 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 90 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Match26 Oct 2026
Al Wahda refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Match24 Oct 2026
At 3 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Al Wahda found something the first half had given no notice of, and Baniyas could not hold what they had.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A brace, and Bernardo Folha takes the afternoon — 9.26
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bernardo Folha provided it, and the 9.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Dušan Tadić, 37, rolls back the years — 8.68
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.68 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match24 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Al Wahda do not lose
9 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bernardo Folha. 5‑4 against Baniyas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Eli Dasa 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A performance of 9.13 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 99 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Dušan Tadić yet — 9.10
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A defender's afternoon for Abdulla Hamad
Defensive actions: 29. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match17 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Al Wahda do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 24. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yaser Alo Ali is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 24 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alaeddine Zouhir
109 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.
Match7 Oct 2026
Al Wahda through in the cup
A 2‑0 win over Dibba, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Yaser Alo Ali, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.94
A mark of 8.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Al Wahda do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Real improvement from Guga at Al Wahda
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Guga is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Guga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.65. 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 ratings12 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Gerónimo Rivera at his very best
Marked 8.84. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Wahda.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 117 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 117 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Louay Trayi is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Oct 2026
21 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
745% of the income goes out in wages at Al Wahda
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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 8.75 — 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.49 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match3 Oct 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alaeddine Zouhir
125 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A defender's afternoon for Jadsom
Defensive actions: 32. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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.
Market28 Sep 2026
Al Wahda may not be able to give Jadsom what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jadsom wants continental football; whether Al Wahda can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Prince Guèye is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
23 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 133 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 133 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Dušan Tadić yet — 9.10
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yaser Alo Ali is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match19 Sep 2026
Al Ahli made Al Wahda work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.41, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.41 — 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Dušan Tadić finally opens his account
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Al Wahda have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Alaeddine Zouhir damages knee ligaments — 140 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 140 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Eli Dasa 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Real improvement from Guga at Al Wahda
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Guga is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Bernardo Folha was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.00. 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
51 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Eli Dasa in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Khamis Naser is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Graduation day at Al Wahda
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Omar Khribin. 2‑1 against Dibba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
685% of the income goes out in wages at Al Wahda
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Prince Guèye is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done: Abdallah Al-Blooshi joins from Dibba in a deal worth $290.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Emirates Club have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mansour Saleh. The answer from Al Wahda has not changed — yet.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Al Wahda will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Oumarou Diadje 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Omar Khribin keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Al Wahda say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Al-Diriyah come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al Wahda did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jadsom and Al Wahda agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Dušan Tadić in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Al Wahda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eli Dasa 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Al Wahda say no — this time
The offer from Al-Faisaly for Omar Khribin was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Gerónimo Rivera has come up in conversations Al Wahda were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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 Wahda heard it as anything else.
Market3 Aug 2026
Jadsom wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dušan Tadić and Al Wahda agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
In brief
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Squad
Saša Ivković falls out with a teammate over standards
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Squad
Jadsom asks for a word with the manager