Sohar

Sohar SC's clearest moment came in the 2012–13 season, when the club needed a promotion/relegation play-off just to stay level with Oman's top flight — the play-off it won, and has treated since as the closest thing to a trophy. The Oman Professional League title has eluded Sohar throughout its history, as has the Sultan Cup, so that one play-off victory still carries more weight than a decade of mid-table finishes.

The club took shape in 1972 in the Al Batinah North town it is named for, plays in green and white, and is known locally as Al-Tamaseeh — the Crocodiles. Its ground, the Sohar Club Stadium, holds 3,350, modest even by Omani standards, which keeps the atmosphere close rather than loud.

Sohar's academy produced Ali Al-Busaidi, who joined as a boy in 2005, rose to captain, made more than fifty appearances for the first team, and went on to win over a hundred caps for Oman, including a part in the national side's Arabian Gulf Cup triumph in 2017. Few clubs in the region can point to a starting line like that for a player who ended up shaping the national team for years afterward.

None of that matters against Saham SC. Games between the two are billed as the North Al Batinah Derby, and fixtures against Al Rustaq and Ibri carry the same weight of local pride — the sort of afternoon where the table goes out of the window.