“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ismaily have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mahamoud Metwaly 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Hatem Sukar 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.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Éric Traoré 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.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Ismaily did not have in the autumn.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Ismaily training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahamoud Metwaly 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Ahmed Adel: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ismaily this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Ismaily training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hatem Sukar 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ahmed Adel 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Ismaily training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Éric Traoré 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mahamoud Metwaly. 1‑0 against El Masry, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mohamed El Amine Ramdaoui did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Mahamoud Metwaly 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Mohamed El Amine Ramdaoui’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ismaily.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Hatem Sukar 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ismaily can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ismaily this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Ismaily training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hatem Sukar 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Ismaily have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.