It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El Dakhleya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Reda Mohamed commits to El Dakhleya for another 3 years.
Squad10 May 2027
Basem Ali 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.
Nobody at El Dakhleya will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Hady Reyad 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.
Everybody at El Dakhleya saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Basem Ali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Petrojet next, and one man in the El Dakhleya dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one El Dakhleya will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at El Dakhleya is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ahmed Sayed Gharib reports back to El Dakhleya with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
El Dakhleya had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Al Ahly, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Basem Ali and El Dakhleya agree another 1 years.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hady Reyad 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.
Ahmed Ghoneim and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Basem Ali
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cruzeiro is saying, and nobody at El Dakhleya is enjoying the guessing.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hady Reyad 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Quilmes have kept their man, and El Dakhleya go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 39 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Mohamed Rizk 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” El Dakhleya have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El Dakhleya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Basem Ali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at El Dakhleya will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Arab Contractors in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
1‑3 to ENPPI, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Hady Reyad 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El Dakhleya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by El Sayed El Wensh to a room that had heard them before.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hady Reyad was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El Dakhleya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 38 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Haras El Hodoud next, and one man in the El Dakhleya dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohamed Zidan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.