Marked for Mido Mostafa
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match4 Sep 2027
The wait goes on for Smouha
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Smouha
Khaled El Ghandour 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Wictor Gabriel is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Samuel Amadi has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match4 Sep 2027
The goals have deserted Smouha
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Smouha can tell you which week it ends in.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Jun 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Smouha is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market28 Jun 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.
Boardroom28 Jun 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samadou Attidjikou is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Tempers go at Smouha
Emmanuel Nweke 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Smouha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Ghazal 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Emmanuel Nweke is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom21 Jun 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Hady Amer has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Market21 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Hady Amer
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hady Amer will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Smouha the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Ali Ghazal in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Smouha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Aldair Ferreira 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.
Market21 Jun 2027
Ahmed Gaber has left for Ittihad in a $22.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Samir Fekri
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samir Fekri will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Smouha the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad7 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Smouha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Wictor Gabriel gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wictor Gabriel has just signed for Smouha, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Ali Ghazal 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Hesham Hafez commits to Smouha for another 4 years.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.