The Ismaily Courier
Squad5 Oct 2026
Éric Traoré makes the wrong kind of headline
Dealt with internally, which is the phrase a club uses when it would rather nobody asked twice. He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday.
Market5 Oct 2026
Only the photograph left for Abdelrahman Mahrous
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abdelrahman Mahrous will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ismaily the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Ismaily
Mahmoud Alaa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Michel Babatunde 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Ismaily come up short against Ittihad
Ittihad left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Raised voices on the training ground at Ismaily
It involved Éric Traoré, it was loud enough to reach the car park, and it was over by lunch. Dressing rooms run hot; the ones that should worry you are the silent ones.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Mohamed Hassan was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Ahmed Ayman
“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 dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Trezeguet El Nenny left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
- Market The Stephen Odey question follows Ismaily around
- Market Mahmoud Otaka is free to find somewhere else
- The dugout The plan did not have a place for Ibrahim El Nagaawy