Marked for Bambo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
5 matches without a win for El Masry
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around El Masry are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Karim El Eraki 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and El Masry know it.
Match3 Oct 2026
3 matches without a goal for El Masry
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Salah Mohsen 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 102% of everything El Masry earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Bambo
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Karim El Eraki 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑2 to Al Ahly, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Bambo
“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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Ameed Sawafta hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what El Masry can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Bambo yet — 7.80
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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 Masry this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
Al Ahly pay $170.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 9.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.81 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Ghazl El Mahalla, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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 Masry this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
Mido Gaber has left for Al Ahly in a $280.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Graduation day at El Masry
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market17 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mostafa Sobhi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Shikabala Soliman has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at El Masry training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salah Mohsen 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Salah Mohsen gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Bambo
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
193 appearances across 10 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and El Masry know what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mahmoud Hamada and El Masry agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Mahmoud Hamada 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. El Masry have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Salah Mohsen 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
El Masry and Bambo are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.