Marked for Abdo Nader
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings25 Aug 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.48, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market25 Aug 2031
“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.
Market25 Aug 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arab Contractors is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Shokry Naguib 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.
Match23 Aug 2031
3‑4 to Al Gaish, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Match23 Aug 2031
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Arab Contractors and Al Gaish in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Federico Bicoro 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.
Squad25 Aug 2031
The manager makes an example of Federico Bicoro
“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.
Squad25 Aug 2031
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Aug 2031
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Alexandre Sanchez made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
Match4 Aug 2031
29 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market4 Aug 2031
“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 The request is on a desk at Arab Contractors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Aug 2031
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Haithem Loucif and Arab Contractors agree another 1 years.
Squad4 Aug 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Aug 2031
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Bicoro 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Jul 2031
Arab Contractors run out of patience with the manager
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and the manager clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Match7 Jul 2031
Every point is an argument now for Arab Contractors
Position 17 and 29 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.
Squad7 Jul 2031
A fracture rules Omar El Wahsh out for 15 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom7 Jul 2031
Arab Contractors have nobody left to take training
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Boardroom7 Jul 2031
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Market7 Jul 2031
“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 Arab Contractors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Jul 2031
The offer from El Dakhleya for Mohamed Samy El Degwy was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad7 Jul 2031
Shokry Naguib 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.
Squad7 Jul 2031
Federico Bicoro 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces23 Jun 2031
Anger at Arab Contractors 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.
Squad23 Jun 2031
A fracture rules Omar El Wahsh out for 31 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Jun 2031
“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.
Market23 Jun 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arab Contractors is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad23 Jun 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Jun 2031
Michael Agbekpornu 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Apr 2031
“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 Arab Contractors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Apr 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Bicoro 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match22 Feb 2031
No end in sight to Arab Contractors's wait for a win
18 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Arab Contractors has to find a result from somewhere.
Market24 Feb 2031
“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 Arab Contractors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Feb 2031
“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.
Squad24 Feb 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Feb 2031
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Bicoro 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.
Squad24 Feb 2031
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adedapo Adejare, and the manager let it.
Player ratings24 Feb 2031
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.67 on the card, and the Arab Contractors support went home talking about one name.
Match22 Feb 2031
It needed Hazem El Askry to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against ENPPI, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings24 Feb 2031
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match25 Jan 2031
14 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.
Match22 Jan 2031
Zamalek go through and Arab Contractors go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Market27 Jan 2031
“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.
Player ratings27 Jan 2031
Santiago Mejía pops up at the right end — 7.79
7.79, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad27 Jan 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Jan 2031
Words at Arab Contractors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Bicoro 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 Jan 2031
“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 ratings27 Jan 2031
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Jan 2031
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
Steady
Squad2 Sep 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Walid Soliman
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arab Contractors lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Sep 2030
Mohamed Atef gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mohamed Atef has just signed for Arab Contractors, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings2 Sep 2030
Shokry Naguib, 36, rolls back the years — 7.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad2 Sep 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Shokry Naguib commits to Arab Contractors for another 2 years.
Squad2 Sep 2030
Federico Bicoro 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.
Boardroom2 Sep 2030
ENPPI will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Usman Abubakar has pre-agreed a move to Arab Contractors, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Market2 Sep 2030
No place for Abdo Nader in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Abdo Nader has his answer from Arab Contractors; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Match31 Aug 2030
It needed Shokry Naguib to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Aswan, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings2 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.