There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Military Production scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Tahah 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alaa Shaaban. 1‑0 against Smouha, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdallah Mahmoud 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Asanele Shibe trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The offer from El Dakhleya for Khaled Ramadan was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Military Production this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ramadan El Nenny is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ibrahim Mohsen 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.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Military Production this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $110.0K for Mohamed Shaaban, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Noble Rumsey has his answer from Military Production; what he does with it is the next window’s story.