Marked for Reda Mohamed
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match10 Nov 2029
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Petrojet spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings12 Nov 2029
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.80, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market12 Nov 2029
Only the photograph left for Karim Ragab
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Karim Ragab will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around El Dakhleya the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Mohamed Hamed 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.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Sherif Dabo 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.
Match10 Nov 2029
It finished 2‑1, and it was Ahmed Sherif’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to El Dakhleya.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
The form table has caught Tasiu Lawal
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Interim Coach, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
The manager makes an example of Reda Mohamed
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match27 Oct 2029
17 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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
There were 12 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match29 Oct 2029
Every point is an argument now for El Dakhleya
Position 18 and 4 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market29 Oct 2029
“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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Mohamed Hamed and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sherif Dabo 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.
Match27 Oct 2029
Smouha left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match22 Sep 2029
12 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.
Squad24 Sep 2029
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Youssef Nader: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match19 Sep 2029
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Ahmed Ehab will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at El Dakhleya escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market24 Sep 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at El Dakhleya, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout24 Sep 2029
“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.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
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 7.79 for the rest of it.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Sherif Dabo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tasiu Lawal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces18 Jun 2029
Supporters organise against the El Dakhleya board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Match18 Jun 2029
26 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market18 Jun 2029
“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.
Transfer targets18 Jun 2029
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. El Dakhleya have done the hard part with Ghazl El Mahalla, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Market18 Jun 2029
As if he never left: Ali Amr returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Ali Amr is a El Dakhleya player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad18 Jun 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at El Dakhleya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sherif Dabo 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.
Market18 Jun 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Walid Sobhi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market18 Jun 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Trezeguet Soliman is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Jan 2029
8 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.
Market15 Jan 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at El Dakhleya, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout15 Jan 2029
“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.
Match13 Jan 2029
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2029
The clubs have shaken hands with Military Production; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The dugout15 Jan 2029
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad15 Jan 2029
Sherif Dabo 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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tasiu Lawal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahly have kept their man, and El Dakhleya go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Oct 2028
A fracture rules Mahmoud Kashlat out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason El Dakhleya will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” El Dakhleya may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad23 Oct 2028
Sherif Dabo 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Baron Ochieng 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Reda Mohamed commits to El Dakhleya for another 3 years.
Match21 Oct 2028
Late, late show earns El Dakhleya a point
Minute 94, against Wadi Degla, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Marked 7.92. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match21 Oct 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Wadi Degla leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces27 Mar 2028
Anger at El Dakhleya spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match25 Mar 2028
No end in sight to El Dakhleya's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at El Dakhleya has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Sherif Dabo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Sayed Gharib 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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mehdi Khallati will call it something else in private.
Match25 Mar 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Ghazl El Mahalla leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
When it matters, Mosaad Awad plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
Reda Mohamed gets it from the manager
“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.