Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Al Ahly will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Emam Ashour and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Al Ahly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Belammari 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.89 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.76 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match21 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
5 on the bounce on the road for Al Ahly. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane 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.
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ahmed Kouka 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑0, Mohamed Ashour could afford to be generous.
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.