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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Smouha have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ittihad have accepted the money. What Smouha do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Smouha can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Smouha have gone to Wadi Degla with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Amr El Sisi 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. El Dakhleya have kept their man, and Smouha go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Smouha lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ahmed Ali Amin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Smouha the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mohamed Dabash 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amr El Sisi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Smouha, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. El Dakhleya will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at El Dakhleya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hady Reyad 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.
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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Bassem Hamdi to a room that had heard them before.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mohamed Shika’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and El Dakhleya needing him to play as if none of it matters.