Marked for Moaz Abdelsalam
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Sep 2028
Tempers go at Lugano
Hannes Delcroix 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Williams Khune gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Williams Khune has just signed for Lugano, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Lugano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonios Papadopoulos 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“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.
Match9 Sep 2028
Young Boys left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market11 Sep 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Lugano signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces11 Sep 2028
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A mark of 5.64 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
A defender's goal wins it for Lugano — 7.73
1 for Antonios Papadopoulos, marked 7.73, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad31 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lugano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Daniel Dos Santos has improved at 25, 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.
Market31 Jul 2028
Stijn Keller has left for Sion in a $520.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Moaz Abdelsalam is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Feb 2028
A fracture rules Jorge Fernandes out for 67 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lugano will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market21 Feb 2028
Only the photograph left for Stijn Keller
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stijn Keller will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lugano the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom21 Feb 2028
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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Tempers go at Lugano
Mattia Zanotti 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Mario Hermoso 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Nov 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.91 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market8 Nov 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Tempers go at Lugano
Mattia Zanotti 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Mario Hermoso 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.
Match6 Nov 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Yanis Cimignani’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Lugano.
Squad8 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Renato Steffen
“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.
The terraces8 Nov 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Alexis Mirbach has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Market8 Nov 2027
Matteo Cassani is 19, and Lugano have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ghazl El Mahalla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Ahmed El Sheikh 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Bassam Walid 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 Ghazl El Mahalla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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.
Match18 Jan 2027
Position 16, 19 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market18 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match16 Jan 2027
A 3‑1 win over Wadi Degla, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Ghazl El Mahalla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed El Sheikh 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Bassam Walid 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.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Marked 8.77 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A performance of 8.23 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
In brief
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Squad
The manager makes an example of Bassam Walid
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Player ratings
Grendo runs at them all day
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Loan watch
The goals keep arriving from Abdi Ineza’s exile
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ghazl El Mahalla lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match2 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Ghazl El Mahalla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed El Sheikh 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Bassam Walid 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Jimmy Mwanga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Ghazl El Mahalla have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match2 Jan 2027
The goal that put Haras El Hodoud ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Ghazl El Mahalla equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.