Al-Ahli edge Al-Feiha 3-2, but the stands keep chanting 'Pusic out'

Minute 88, a block of Al-Ahli supporters rose from their seats. The scoreboard in front of them read 3-2 for the home side. They did not sing Artem Bondarenko's name, though he had scored twice that night. They chanted three short syllables, clear and cold: "Pusic out." The chant started in a small corner and spread along the neighbouring rows, steady as a drumbeat that had nothing to do with the ball still rolling below.

I have sat in a stand like that. Years ago, at the Vélodrome, I watched a coach's name being called at the exact moment his team was leading. That night I understood something the scoreboard never explains: a crowd does not react to results, it reacts to a feeling. The feeling at Al-Ahli on Monday evening was that of someone standing in front of a door already open, unable to walk through.

Al-Ahli hosted Al-Feiha in round ten of the Saudi Roshn League. The match ended 3-2. Bondarenko, the Ukrainian, scored twice; Firas Al-Buraikan added a third from the penalty spot. Three points, a hard-fought win, an evening the staff could tick off as "job done" and go home.

"Al-Raqi" do not live on ticks like that. This has happened repeatedly. Marino Pusic has been booed even on nights when his team got a positive result, and each time the image is the same: a coach standing in his technical area, arms folded, looking up at the stands, offering no explanation, no apology, only a look. The thread between him and part of the terrace has been taut for a while, and three points were not enough to slacken it.

What stopped me in this match was the other number on the board: the 2. A side that wants to be treated as a title contender cannot concede twice at home to an opponent rated below them, in a game where they held most of the ball and controlled most of the rhythm. Al-Ahli are winning through moments, not structure — and the stands feel it before any table of numbers can say it. Bondarenko shone, but the way he had to shine is the problem: individual actions breaking a game open, rather than a system delivering the ball to the right man at the right beat.

From my experience covering matches in the Gulf leagues, big teams win in two ways. The first is structural: control, squeeze, then finish with a move rehearsed a hundred times. The second is momentary: wait for a flash, a penalty, someone else's mistake. The second delivers three points but not calm. Calm is precisely what the Al-Ahli terraces are demanding. They do not need another dramatic night. They need a night they can sit still from the 20th minute.

I once stumbled in front of a microphone, and learned to stand back up through the words themselves. The first thing those words taught me was that a win must not be turned into a shield for everything still unresolved. The three points against Al-Feiha are real. They keep Al-Ahli in the race, they buy Pusic time, they prove the dressing room still responds. But if every win must arrive with a chant demanding a sacking, then what is shaking sits somewhere else: the story of the club, not the coach's chair.

The noise makes it easy to conclude that Pusic has lost the dressing room. I do not think so. The players scored three, they celebrated together, they ran to each other after each goal. The stand and the dressing room are two different rooms, and the chant outside usually rings louder than the reality inside. The problem sits one level deeper: Al-Ahli have lost the story of themselves. A club with that much history, when it can no longer say what it is — the controlling side, the continental side, the side that does not flinch in the 85th minute — will go looking for someone to blame. The coach is always the cheapest variable to change, and the easiest one to see on screen.

There is another layer the stands cannot see. A transfer negotiated through several intermediaries builds expectations that do not match a player's actual level, and the last man to pay the bill for that gap is the coach, asked why an expensive name is not playing a role nobody in the meeting room ever defined. Al-Ahli are rebuilding while still competing domestically and on the continent. Two fronts, half the training time, and a terrace with no patience left for process.

The sorrow of champions is an empire collapsing at the very summit of glory. No empire fell in one evening of round ten. But Pusic walked into the press room with three points in hand and a question no scoreline can answer. He can talk about patience, about the calendar, about progress. The stands will not listen. They only hear what they already feel: that this team can concede twice at any moment.

In the emptiness, I hear what the noisy stand never says. The emptiness at Al-Ahli is an idea of themselves — something three points cannot fill and a coach cannot fill either. Pusic can turn the Al-Feiha win into a launchpad, or let it drift by as one line in the results table. That depends on whether he dares to admit the problem lies in the fact that Al-Ahli have not yet found the way of playing that makes people believe.

A team can win through moments for a few weeks. No team wins through moments for a season. And the crowd's trust, the one thing missing from every table, is built the opposite way: through nights with nothing to remember except peace of mind.