“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Masr El Makasa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ahmed Mohsen 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 May 2028
Mostafa Fathy 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.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Daouda Doumbia's mistake
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daouda Doumbia and Masr El Makasa agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Masr El Makasa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Mostafa Fathy 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Masr El Makasa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mostafa Fathy 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 29 combined actions and a mark of 6.21, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Masr El Makasa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Masr El Makasa could ask drops and the wages Ahmed Mohsen can ask rise.
Mostafa Fathy 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.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daouda Doumbia 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Masr El Makasa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. El Sayed Fathy provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ali Mahmoud is living that version at Masr El Makasa, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: El Sayed Fathy. 2‑1 against Ittihad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.