Muharraq

Al-Muharraq Stadium sits in Arad, built to hold 20,000 and named for Sheikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, the man whose backing brought the club itself into being. It is the only ground the Red Wolf has ever needed, because there has rarely been a season here without something worth turning up for.

The club took shape in 1928, when Al-Khalifiya, Al-Shabab and Al-Fityan merged into one side under Sheikh Ali's patronage, making Al-Muharraq the oldest football club in Bahrain — a status that earned it the label "Grandfather of Gulf Clubs" long before the trophies piled up to justify it. And pile up they did: 36 Bahraini Premier League titles, seven of them won back to back between 1957–58 and 1962–63, a run no other Bahraini side has matched.

2008 stands apart even in that record. Al-Muharraq swept the league, the King's Cup, the Crown Prince Cup and the AFC Cup in the same season, beating Al-Safa in the continental final to become the first Bahraini club to lift a title outside the country's borders. Rico, the Brazilian striker who topped the scoring charts that year, was central to it. The AFC Cup returned in 2021, this time with a 3–0 win over Nasaf Qarshi, Jordanian midfielders Noor Al-Rawabdeh and Mahmoud Al-Mardi doing much of the work in midfield.

None of it matters more, locally, than the derby with Al-Ahli of Manama, still regarded as the biggest fixture in Bahraini football. The academy behind the first team has fed the national side for years, captain Mohamed Salmeen among its graduates, while Salman Sharida and Ali Amer moved between playing and coaching so often that the line between the two roles at this club barely holds.

Fernando Manuel now has charge of a squad that goes into the new season defending the double sweep of the 2025 and 2026 league titles, with the King's Cup added to the collection this year as well.