Marked for Hesham Mostafa
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Mar 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces6 Mar 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 31 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Trezeguet Hamdi and Masr El Makasa agree another 4 years.
Match4 Mar 2028
1‑2 to Smouha, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Masr El Makasa release $2.0M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Trezeguet Hamdi out for 73 days
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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Fathy El Hadary damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Match19 Jan 2028
Out, 0‑2 to Al Ahly, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad24 Jan 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Masr El Makasa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The terraces24 Jan 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 9 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Market24 Jan 2028
Jalen Crisler hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Masr El Makasa can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Jan 2028
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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Lucas Ferraz Vila 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.
Match22 Jan 2028
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Trezeguet Hamdi out for 20 days
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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
A brace, and El Sayed Fathy takes the afternoon — 8.33
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
A move Ali Mahmoud would have made for nothing
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Masr El Makasa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Walid Zizo is a better footballer than he was
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.
Market23 Aug 2027
The paperwork is done: Hesham Mostafa joins from Al Ahly in a deal worth $140.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Market23 Aug 2027
Mostafa Zizo has left for Haras El Hodoud in a $56.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market23 Aug 2027
Police Union pay $56.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Match21 Aug 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Ahly is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 May 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Ahly have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market17 May 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al Ahly heard it as anything else.
Squad17 May 2027
Emam Ashour 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.
Squad17 May 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.
Loan watch17 May 2027
“I did not go to Petrojet to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Ahly and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 15 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market19 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al Ahly is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Ieltsin Camões: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al Ahly have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market19 Apr 2027
Al Ahly may not be able to give Marwan Ateya what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marwan Ateya wants continental football; whether Al Ahly can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Emam Ashour 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 Al Ahly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
“I did not go to Petrojet to sit and watch. I want to come back to Al Ahly and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 11 matches say the rest.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Emam Ashour has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Al Ahly will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
Hesham Mostafa: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Petrojet have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market12 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Petrojet is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom12 Apr 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mohamed Khalifa has agreed terms with El Masry for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match20 Mar 2027
Nobody wins at Al Ahly
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Market22 Mar 2027
Ahmed Kouka has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al Ahly they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match20 Mar 2027
Al Ahly cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market22 Mar 2027
Omar Trezeguet has left for Chicago Fire in a $4.0M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Emam Ashour 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 Al Ahly this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match20 Mar 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Zizo. 2‑0 against Arab Contractors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of Marwan Ateya at his very best
Marked 8.69. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Ahly.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of Zizo at his very best
Marked 8.63. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Al Ahly.