The offer from Alianza Lima for Achraf Bencharki 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.
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.
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Al Ahly training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zizo 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.
The name of Hesham Mostafa has come up in conversations Al Ahly were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I watch every Al Ahly game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al Gaish runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Nothing was announced, because nothing ever is. The team sheet simply stopped looking the way it did, 3 matches ago, and it has not looked that way since. Every supporter noticed in the same week and none of them were told.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Al Ahly have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al Ahly can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hesham Mostafa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Al Ahly the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zizo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nejc Gradišar and Al Ahly agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad12 Jul 2027
11 new faces, and Al Ahly are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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.
Emam Ashour 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youssef Belammari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hossam Mohsen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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.
Squad26 Apr 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Al Ahly. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
4 goals in 34 games at Ittihad — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Al Ahly updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
18 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.
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A 1‑0 win over Ghazl El Mahalla, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
1 for Loreintz Rosier, marked 7.76, 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.
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.
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.