Marked for Walid Ashour
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Masr El Makasa's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Masr El Makasa has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.79, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from Karim Ashour at 19 — 7.78
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Karim Ashour did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Dec 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Masr El Makasa and Ittihad, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shikabala Marwan 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Walid 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 Masr El Makasa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Ramadan Sobhi
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Dec 2026
A 0‑3 beating by Arab Contractors was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Match5 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Masr El Makasa's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Masr El Makasa has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed El Mohamady 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Both jobs done by Emad Hegazi — 6.36
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.36, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hossam Mohsen
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Masr El Makasa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match24 Oct 2026
Wadi Degla left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed El Mohamady 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Walid 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 7.92. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Mostafa Sobhi damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Masr El Makasa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Lawal Muritala delivers — 7.86
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Lawal Muritala scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Shikabala Marwan 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Walid 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed El Mohamady has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hossam Trezeguet. 2‑0 against El Dakhleya, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
20 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.