A team, in eight months.

Eight months ago, Rimal Al-Sahra SC existed as a line on a licence application. No squad. No training ground. No shirt. A name, a colour, and a badge half-sketched on a napkin in the Al Wahda office.

Today, a starting eleven runs out in amber every other Saturday. The bench has depth. The U18 has seven Emirati scholars and three cross-border trialists. The physio room has a new ultrasound unit and a tape supply ordered through the January window.

The short version is recruitment. The longer version - the one the head coach keeps telling to anyone who'll listen - is a network. The call from Al-Mudam that unlocked the pitch-sharing agreement. The agent in Abu Dhabi who pointed at Takouam. The old coaching contact from the Gulf League that sent us Kareem's tape.

None of it looks like the marquee move the first-division clubs can make. None of it has to. We built a squad for the Division 3, a schedule for the Gulf summer, and a dressing room that argued constructively by week four.

Eight months. One licence. A full team-sheet. The rest is the first season.