Marked for Hussein Faisal
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Mohamed Salem: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arab Contractors have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Hussein Faisal 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 dugout18 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Adel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Fawaaz Basadien is in the works
Arab Contractors have made the call to Mamelodi Sundowns. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Trezeguet El Wensh was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Arab Contractors dressing room was either.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Match16 Jan 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Aswan defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Jan 2027
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Police Union will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and Anthony Okachi takes the afternoon — 8.63
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anthony Okachi provided it, and the 8.63 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Kegan Johannes 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Anthony Uzodimma did the work nobody counts — 7.44
10 combined actions and 7.44. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Everybody at Arab Contractors saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Marked 8.04 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad7 Dec 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Age has not caught Mohamed Antar yet — 8.36
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.36 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A goal and an assist for Hussein Faisal — 7.93
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.93 beside his name.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Kegan Johannes 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 terraces7 Dec 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Karim Hassan has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Charles Bassey and Arab Contractors agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Adel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑4 to Zamalek, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Arab Contractors will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad30 Nov 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 Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Nov 2026
4 matches without defeat, and then Zamalek. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑4 Trezeguet El Wensh left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Adel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Nov 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Ahmed Ouled Behi
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kegan Johannes 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
El Masry left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Hussein Faisal
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Arab Contractors are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Adel 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
No place for Hélder Ribeiro in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Arab Contractors are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market14 Sep 2026
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The plan did not have a place for Karim Hassan
Nobody at Arab Contractors is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kegan Johannes 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Zamalek pay $140.0K, 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Frosinone have kept their man, and Arab Contractors go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Adel 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Youssef Abdelhafiz has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
El Masry top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.