The words a physio says slowly. 135 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Petrojet is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Tawfik Mohamed 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Ahmed Yassin 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Petrojet have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.91, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Tawfik Mohamed 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Ahmed Yassin 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Robert Ndip Tambe. 2‑1 against Police Union, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Yassin 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.
20 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rasheed Ahmed. 1‑0 against Arab Contractors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 152 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mahmoud Shedid Qenawi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Petrojet the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadAhmed Jahouh falls out with a teammate over standards
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Petrojet lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Ghazl El Mahalla for Gabriel Chukwudi 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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Qobolwakhe Sibande scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Smouha, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Yassin 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 touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Petrojet will not try tonight.